Small Wonder: Servos and sprites and everything bytes (S5E5)
by BadMrSushi
Summary: While Ted struggles with the issue of Reggie now knowing about Vicki's real identity, Joan begins to feel like neither of her two kids needs her that much anymore. Vicki meanwhile gets her first look at the high school hierarchy...


**Small Wonder:**

 **(S5E5) Servos and sprites and everything bytes.**

 _By BadMrSushi._

Vicki Lawson stood upright in front of her Mother, Joan, and held her arms up towards the ceiling of the Lawson's kitchen. Joan rolled Vicki's sleeves down to her shoulders, revealing the girl's upper arms and her armpits. Joan sighed out and she wiggled her daughter's right arm a little bit until she found the well disguised seam that she had been looking for.

"Ted did this a little too good if you ask me!" Said Joan, as she pushed in on Vicki's shoulder. As she pressed down on her shoulder, an electrical socket pushed it's way out of Vicki's armpit. The sight of the whole ordeal proved too much for Joan, and she dropped the cord of her electrical knife. Vicki looked up at her with a tiny bit of surprise crossing her face. "Forget it Vicki, let's just use an old fashioned knife from the drawer." Said Joan, as she crossed the kitchen.

"Okay." Said Vicki, with an acknowledging nod. She picked up the electric knife and wrapped it's cord around it's handle. She looked at the pork roast on the table and evaluated what knife would be second best to use in the carving of the meat. A rotating index of the available knives in the house digitized in Vicki's field of vision, and she was quickly able to pick one out. The digital graphic of the knife flashed and then became a translucent slowly turning three-dimensional wireframe representation for her to look at, complete with it's technical name. "Dad's camping machete is the next best knife to use." Vicki said, turning to look at Joan.

"Vicki! My roast isn't that tough! It's just a little… overdone maybe." Said Joan, sounding just the littlest bit hurt. She looked over at the pork roast again and bit her lip. "Maybe the pizza cutter would work…" She said to herself, as she went about rooting through the knives in the kitchen drawer. Vicki walked over and joined Joan at the drawer, placing the electric knife on the counter next to them.

"The butcher's cleaver would also work." Said Vicki, as she timidly picked up the large cleaver by it's handle. Joan scrunched her mouth up and closed the drawer.

"Well… I guess if we end up smashing the roast, we can just make it into pulled pork sandwiches." Said Joan, as she took the cleaver from Vicki. Vicki followed her mother over to the kitchen island where the pork roast lay in it's pan, surrounded by little white potatoes and baby carrots. She watched as Joan turned the pan around a few times, trying to find the best side from which to attack the roast- finally turning it back to where it had started in the first place. Joan picked up the cleaver and sighed out.

"Do you want me to do it?" Asked Vicki.

"No." Stated Joan, a little too quickly. Vicki dropped her arms to her sides and stepped back a bit from her mother. "I'm sorry Vicki, I just want to try it myself first. I overcooked it, I might as well try to cut it too…" Said Joan. Then she smiled and patted Vicki's head. Vicki nodded and remained silent as Joan brought the cleaver up into the air. Joan cleared her throat and then brought the cleaver down on the meat.

The cleaver hit the meat with a wet thud, and instead of slicing through the roast the cutting utensil launched the meat out of the pan and into the air. Vicki's superior reflexes saved the day however, as she quickly grabbed the pan from the kitchen island and caught the airborne roast neatly back in it's place. Vicki stood over by the oven with the roast squarely in the middle of the pan, having only disturbed a few carrots from their places in the dish. Joan put a hand on her hip and shook her head in dismay at herself, just as her husband Ted came into the kitchen through the swinging living room door. He looked up at the scene and smiled.

"Oh honey, that looks great! You really outdid yourself this time!" Said Ted, as he embraced Joan in a hug. "Picture perfect." He added. Joan sighed out and put her cleaver down on the table, making Ted take a step back- realizing that he had given her a squeeze while she still had the knife in her hand.

"Picture perfect for sports illustrated maybe. I can see the article now, woman invents the world's first edible football." Said Joan, sounding very annoyed. "I think we might be better off at ordering in tonight." She said, as she put the cleaver and a meat fork into the sink behind her.

"Why, what's the matter?" Asked Ted, as he went over to Vicki. She was still by the oven, pan in her hands. "It looks fine to me." He said, poking the roast.

"It almost went out of bounds." Said Vicki, as she walked the roast over to the island. Joan nodded and leaned up against the sink with her arms crossed and a towel over her shoulder.

"It's so overcooked and rubbery that I couldn't even cut it with a fire axe." Said Joan in an exasperated tone. Ted went over to her and put an arm around her shoulder.

"Well Joan, honey, let Vicki do it! We both know that she's more than capable in a kitchen- and she could cut an entire cow in half with a butter knife if she had to." Said Ted. Joan and Vicki both looked over to Ted, who frowned in recognition of what he had just spoken.

"Thanks for _that_ image, Ted!" Said Joan, as she walked towards the living room door. Ted followed her out towards the living room too.

"Joanie! Wait!" He said after her. Then he turned to Vicki and motioned with his hands toward her as if he was cutting. "Cut-cut-cut!" He said at her as he backed out of the door way. Vicki motioned with her hands back at him with a slicing motion.

"Cut-cut-cut!" She mimicked, as she grabbed a serrated bread knife from the drawer behind her. Ted went through the swinging door to find Joan crumpled up on the couch, with a pillow over her head. She sighed out loudly and went limp as Ted sat down on the other side of the couch. "Wanna talk about it?" He asked, in a moping sort of voice. Joan shook her head from underneath the pillow.

"No." She said, muffled by the fabric. Ted sighed out and sat back.

"Well then… are you going to be on the couch all night? Because Jamie should be back here with Reggie any minute now." Said Ted. Joan only made a grumbling noise and shifted her body slightly away from him. Ted started jabbing gently at her ribs. "Joanie-Joanie-Joanie~." He said in a mock French accent. Joan shot up from her place finally and scooted away from him.

"Oh Ted! Stop!" She said, fuming on the other side of the couch. Ted dropped his head and pouted at her. He blinked at her a few times and she eventually had to hide her tiny smile.

"Sowwy." He said. "Come on Joan, what's bugging you?" He asked. She turned to him and dropped her pillow on the couch cushion.

"You wanna know why?" She asked, a tiny scowl on her face. Ted prepared himself mentally for what he knew would be a maelstrom of problems that he simply wouldn't be able to relate to.

"Yes I do." He stated, very confidently. Joan took a deep breath and sat up straight.

"Neither of the kids need me." She said. Ted raised an eyebrow at her.

"What do you mean they don't need you? Joanie- of course they do!" Said Ted. Joan shook her head and crossed her arms.

"Ted the only thing they need me for is a ride to school! Well until Jamie gets his license! Do you know I spend more time each day with other people's children than I do with ours?!" She exclaimed. Ted shrugged and opened his mouth to say something, but Joan cut him off. "Jamie's so grown up now that I almost miss all of his trouble making days, we barely talk anymore!" She said.

"Joan, I think-" Began Ted.

"And Vicki, sure she can cook for everyone, and do all the housework faster and better than anyone else, and she never sneaks out at night to go hangout with girlfriends… or boys, I just!…" Said Joan, as she shook her fists into the air. "I wish she would need my help just once in awhile! For any little thing- but her and Jamie both, it's like they suddenly turned into self-sufficient little adults overnight! How did this happen?!" She asked as she buried her head into Ted's shoulder. Ted waited for his wife to continue, and seeing that she was indeed done with her rant, he finally opened his mouth to comfort her.

"How did what happen? Joanie, Vicki-" Said Ted.

"How did I become a bad mother?! Did I neglect them both by taking this full time teaching job? Maybe I should have thought this through more…" Said Joan, cutting Ted off yet again. Ted grabbed Joan by the shoulders and straightened her up.

"Joan, Jamie is a _very fifteen_ year old boy, it's his job to be distant and moody. Trust me honey, you don't even want to think about what's on his mind most of the time anyways!" He said. Joan smiled slightly and nodded as she wiped one of her eyes. "And Vicki is supposed to be self-sufficient, that's how I built her! You know they both love their mommy dearest." Said Ted. Joan gave him a nod and scooted away again.

"I know." She said, sounding a little comforted. "I just… especially with Vicki, I forget sometimes. She never needed me for the birds and the bees, or the lemonade stands, or the tucking in at night- but she's still our daughter… she's not the same little robot that we met five years ago, she's just like a real girl!" Said Joan, sighing out after she finished. Ted grinned and nudged her playfully.

"That's true. Look at it this way Joan, we'll never have to worry about her trying to sneak in some boy through the window- and she'll never go through a teen angst." He said to her, as he smiled. "You're right though, they've both definitely changed. There's just one thing." He added. Joan looked over at him.

"What's that?" Asked Joan.

"Vicki may seem just like a real girl to us and everyone else, but Reggie sure figured it out." Said Ted.

"I guess it was only a matter of time… he's been around her and Jamie so much. What do you think it was that finally tipped him off?" Asked Joan. Ted scoffed and folded his arms across his chest.

"Well, if it wasn't the time she pulled up a tree from it's roots right in front of him, or when she lifted up a boy twice her size with one hand, then it was probably all the little things in between." He said, sounding a little heavy hearted. Joan shook her head.

"What little things are those?" She asked. Ted looked up at the ceiling and thought about it as he talked.

"Oh, you know, stuff the three of us have gotten use to. Like how whenever we go to the beach the rest of us use sun block lotion and Vicki uses Krylon from a spray can." He said. Joan smiled and hugged a pillow to her chest. "Or how about those times when birds have landed on her head?" Added Ted.

"I always hope no one's ever watching when they land..." Said Joan, as she reflected on the many times that had happened. "I'm just glad that dogs don't think that she's a walking talking fire hydrant." She said. Ted gave out a laugh and turned towards her on the couch.

"You know something Joan, maybe Reggie knowing about Vicki really being a robot isn't such a bad thing- it might even make for an interesting study in dynamic human and artificial intelligence interaction!" Said Ted, a little excitedly. Joan peered over at him from behind her pillow.

"What do you mean by that?" She asked. Ted shrugged.

"Well, I've always thought that an outsider like Reggie or Harriet might treat Vicki a lot differently if they knew that she wasn't human- I think that Reggie will be more cautious around her- maybe even excluding her from more conversations for awhile." Said Ted. "I'll bet he'll even be more apt to notice more things about her that gives her identity away." He added. Joan's mouth dropped open and she dropped her pillow down a bit.

"Oh Ted, that's terrible! You mean you think he'll be meaner with Vicki just because he knows she's a robot now? How could you say that's not a bad thing?!" Exclaimed Joan.

"Joan, come on, it would only be temporary! It'd be like an adjustment period- that's all, Jamie even said that Reggie sounds like he's known for awhile. Besides, who could ever really be mean to Vicki? The way Jamie tells it, she's one of the most popular girls in the freshman class!" Said Ted. "Don't worry, you'll see. After the initial shock wears off, Reggie will see that Vicki's the same girl he's always known. Just with a few more bells and whistles than he thought." He said with a smile. Joan scrunched her mouth up and nodded silently.

* * *

Jamie and Reggie walked across the trail near the Lawson's home, cutting through a few yards here and there where they wouldn't be seen. The walk from Reggie's house had them cross the busiest avenue in town, but strangely the traffic seemed very slow- even for a Sunday! They came to a stop just a few short blocks from Jamie's cul-de-sac neighborhood, marveling at some Halloween decorations that one family had already begun to set up.

"Man, they're really into the _spirit_ of things!" Said Jamie, as he nudged his friend. Reggie shook his head and rolled his eyes at Jamie. "Hey… are you going to go trick or treating this year? We're probably not supposed to now, huh?" Asked Jamie. Reggie itched the back of his head and thought his friend's question over.

"Yeah, we're high schoolers now, that stuff's for babies." Said Reggie. "We can get candy the old fashioned way anyways." He added.

"Yeah I guess so." Said Jamie. They continued onward towards the Lawson house, cutting across one more lawn and finally setting foot on the lane that would ultimately take them to Jamie's home. "I'm glad you let my mom and dad talk you into coming over today- it'll really calm them down." Said Jamie, as they turned the corner onto the cul-de-sac.

"Oh sure. It's no problem Jamie, I'd do it for any friend whose sister's a robot!" Said Reggie back, a little jokingly. Jamie furrowed his brow a little and put his hands in his pockets. "Plus my mom is trying to cook with plantains tonight- this is gonna save me from having to pretend that I like the stuff! Bleh!" Added Reggie.

"What's a plantain?" Asked Jamie.

"It's like a banana, but it tastes like cardboard wrapped up in wax paper! She says it's like a cultural food for our family, but my dad says there's never been any plantains in Indiana." Answered Reggie. "I'm just grateful that we're not Eskimos! She'd be trying to feed us frozen fish every night!" He said. Jamie laughed.

"I'm pretty lucky, the only exotic food my mom puts on the table is from the Chinese takeout!" Said Jamie. "Vicki does most of the cooking nowadays. She's really good at it." He added, as they reached the porch of the Lawson house.

"Yeah, I saw." Said Reggie. Jamie gave him a nod and folded his arms across his chest.

"Okay Reggie, this is it. You might never look at her the same way again after this- are you sure you just don't want her to hypnotize you and erase your memory of the whole thing?" Asked Jamie, with a big smile on his face. Reggie frowned.

"What do you mean? She… can't actually do that to people… can she?" He asked, a little concerned. Jamie smiled and turned the front door knob.

"Who? Vicki? _Of course not_." He said as he ushered Reggie into the house. Reggie grimaced at his friends words and sheepishly entered into the house. Jamie followed him and closed the front door behind them.

"Reggie!" Said Ted, as he got up from the couch in the living room. He greeted the two boys at the door and motioned for Reggie to sit down. "We're glad you decided to come!" He said, nervously gripping his hands together.

"Sure thing Mr. Lawson. I didn't want you all to think that I was gonna go and blab to some newspaper or something." Said Reggie. "Besides, you guys have air conditioning." He said with a smile. Ted smiled back and waved Jamie onwards toward the kitchen.

"Jamie, you want to go get Vicki?" He asked. "I think dinner is just about ready, but go ahead and tell her to come out here for just a little while." He said. Jamie gave Ted a weird looking salute and turned towards the kitchen door.

"Sure thing." He said. He exited into the kitchen, leaving Reggie alone with his father. Reggie sat on the couch and looked up at Ted. Ted gave out a nervous chuckle and went to go sit down in the chair across from him.

"So you have a class with Jamie and Vicki, huh?" Said Ted, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had befallen them. Reggie nodded.

"Yep! Gym class and Biology." He said. "If you count lunch as a class, then we all have three classes together!" He added. Ted chuckled again and Vicki appeared in the door behind him, wearing her usual attire.

"You called me?" Asked Vicki, as she went to go stand by Ted. Reggie was taken aback at seeing Vicki in her pinafore- he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her in it. Although she hadn't really outgrown it size wise, something about her wearing it didn't quite look right now. He'd become accustomed to her dressing like any other girl he'd known- and maybe that was something that Mr. Lawson had been aiming for. Maybe he wanted her to 'blend' in with everyone else, kind of like the terminator could blend in with unwary humans. Reggie shook his head at the thought, and smiled at the familiar face in the pinafore next to Mr. Lawson.

"Hi Vicki. Take a seat on the couch, would you?" Asked Ted, as he got up from his own chair. Vicki nodded and wordlessly sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Reggie. Ted made himself comfortable, sitting on the little coffee table in front of the couch so that he could easily talk to both of the kids. He inhaled sharply and put his hands on his knees. "So, we have quite a bit to talk about." Said Ted.

"Yeah…" Said Reggie. "I guess I kind of ruined her undercover operation, huh?" He said, jokingly. Ted smiled and gave him a nod.

"Well Reg, I'm almost sort of glad that you did. You're Jamie's best friend- it's been really hard on him trying to keep Vicki's secret from you." Said Ted. "Just out of curiosity, when did you figure it all out?" He asked. Reggie shrugged and looked over at Vicki, who seemed just a little too quiet.

"Oh… I think it was when I heard Jamie and her arguing outside of the comic book store." He said. Ted raised an eyebrow.

"The comic book store?" Asked Ted. Reggie nodded.

"Yeah, I think that he thought the coast was clear- and I heard them saying some weird things about circuits and her being a crazy mixed up robot..." He said. Then he itched his head. "There was other stuff too, I feel kind of dumb for not knowing it a lot sooner!" He said. Ted clicked his tongue.

"Well you're not dumb, Reggie, there's only a handful of people that know that she's a robot. Harriet's over here all the time, and she's still never caught on." Said Ted.

"She's also never caught on that Jamie doesn't want to marry her." Said Vicki, finally speaking up. Then she turned her attention to Reggie, who smiled weakly back at her. "I'm not a crazy mixed up robot anymore either." She affirmed.

"So…" Began Reggie. "Why did you make her? Wouldn't it have been easier to just make a kid the old fashioned way?" He asked. Ted laughed out, and Vicki tilted her head to the side in thought. She had missed the apparent humor in Reggie's question.

"Would have been cheaper too." Said Ted. He cleared his throat and continued. "I originally wanted to have my company make a bunch of robots just like Vicki, but it didn't go over too well. So she became my homework- so to speak." He said with a tiny smile.

"I get it- she's like a maid, right? That's why she wears that weird outfit sometimes huh?" Asked Reggie. Ted shrugged and motioned for Vicki to turn towards the kitchen.

"Not exactly. I created her to help disabled children and seniors with their everyday lives. That's why she's so strong- just in case she ever needed to lift someone up into a bed or a wheelchair. And this dress she wears is for easier access to her circuit boards and electric devices- look." Said Ted, as he opened up the back of Vicki's pinafore. Reggie recoiled as he watched Ted open up the back of Vicki's pinafore, and press down on her back. Her back access panel opened up, revealing the lit up circuits and lights within. The illusion was completely over, and Reggie sprang up off the couch.

"I see- okay!" Said Reggie, as he looked away. Ted closed the circuit board back up and zipped up Vicki's pinafore for her. He hadn't really considered that Reggie might react so negatively to seeing the circuit board- and Ted could only guess at the reason why.

"Are you alright there, Reggie? Take a breather." Said Ted, as he got up and steadied Reggie. "It's a shock huh? Sorry, I didn't think about that- you've known her for so long- that probably wasn't the best time to show you…" He said, regretting his actions. Reggie remained silent for a while and finally huffed out.

"She looks like a real person." He stated, at last. Ted nodded.

"I know. People react better to a friendly human face-" He began.

"I mean how come she looks so real? All the robots I've seen on T.V. look like big metal blocks with chicken legs." Said Reggie. "Why doesn't she look like that?" He asked. Ted scrunched his mouth up.

"I guess I just figured it out before most of the other robotic engineers out there did." He said. Ted weighed the idea of telling Reggie about how truly advanced some of the robots not shown on the television were, but thought better of it. "And, I got lucky by working at United Robotronics, they have an entire department that makes prosthetics for almost every part of the human body." He added. Reggie finally turned back around and looked at Vicki.

"Okay. Okay." He said, seeming to collect himself again. "So how come she isn't growing anymore? Is this as old as she'll get?" He asked.

"She has an auto extending endoskeleton, but that's all the further she can safely 'grow' for right now, but yeah- Vicki's probably going to always look just like this." Said Ted. "Over the years, Reggie, Vicki's become less of a robot that I'm trying to refine, and more of a member of the family. We treat her just like one of us, and that's the truth." He said, as he folded his arms across his chest and looked down at Vicki. Vicki looked back up at him.

"That's the truth." She repeated. Then she looked back at Reggie. "I even got grounded- just like Jamie." She said with a nod. Ted rolled his eyes.

"You got ' _grounded'_ because you stuck your finger into a faulty power outlet and got shocked, Vicki, that's not the same thing." Said Ted.

"Jamie said that it still counts." Said Vicki.

"Anyways!" Said Ted. "Reggie, is there anything you want to talk about with Vicki? I can leave you two alone for a bit if it would help." Said Ted.

"Alone?" Asked Reggie, sounding almost afraid. Ted smiled and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"She's the same person you've always known, Reg. Don't think of her as a robot, or an android, think of her as your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" Said Ted. "Go on, don't be afraid." He said, nudging Reggie closer to Vicki.

"Oh- okay-" Said Reggie, as he was pushed closer to the robot girl. He stood in front of her and gave her a quick smile, and Vicki in turn quickly smiled back.

"I tell you what, I'll just be in the kitchen for a few minutes- and you just call out if you need me. Okay?" Asked Ted. Reggie slowly nodded.

"Okay…" He finally said.

"Good!" Said Ted, with that he bounded towards the kitchen door. Reggie looked after him and thought that he seemed almost relieved to leave the room. He scratched the back of his head and beamed a smile at Vicki.

"So! You're a robot?…" He asked. Vicki tilted her head to the side and put her hands on her hips.

"I thought you already knew that." She said. Reggie smiled a little and walked around her in a wide circle, looking her up and down. Vicki turned her head and followed him as he went.

"Can you feel things?" Asked Reggie, finally stopping in front of her. Vicki nodded.

"Yes, I can feel things like this." She said, as she patted around his face with her hand. Reggie pushed her hand away.

"I mean, can you feel things touch you? Like does it hurt when your back-" Said Reggie, swallowing his fear down and trying to finish his thought. "When your back is open?" He asked. Vicki shrugged at him.

"I can sense if something touches me, but I can't feel pain. I don't have a nervous system like you do." She said. Reggie gingerly pressed a finger into Vicki's shoulder to test it's give, and immediately withdrew it.

"But you can get sad and other stuff, right? I've seen you smile and frown before- I think." Said Reggie. Vicki furrowed her brow.

"I can sometimes register automated subroutines in my parallel processing unit- you could call them emotions." She said. Reggie shook his head.

"Say what?" He asked, confused. Vicki tilted her head.

"I can get sad." She reiterated.

The dinner at the Lawson house had gone surprisingly smooth despite the overwhelming revelation to Reggie. It almost seemed unreal to Jamie that his friend was so comfortable with the knowledge of what Vicki actually was- especially since he had been acting so rude around her lately. He couldn't guess what Reggie's attitude adjustment stemmed from, or why he had begun to distance himself from Vicki in the first place. At first it looked like Reggie had simply had enough of his mechanical sister, but as Jamie sat in the passenger's seat of the family BMW he started thinking about the possibility that his best friend had been afraid of Vicki. After all, almost every science fiction movie ever made about robots portrayed them as brutal overloads and killing machines.

"Hmph." Said Jamie, as he hunched down into the seat. Ted looked over at him for a brief moment and then continued his conversation with Reggie, who sat alone in the back of the vehicle.

"So I guess the real question is, are you going to be able to treat Vicki the same way you did before?" Said Ted, as he drove the car down the avenue. Reggie nodded to Ted in the rear view mirror.

"Sure! I'm cool, Mr. Lawson- I'll just have to remember to keep my magnetic keychain away from her!" Said Reggie as he smiled at Ted.

"Yeah, you should see her try to get one off her hands!" Said Jamie as he laughed. Ted shot him a look and squinted at him. "I mean, poor Vicki. She needs all the support she can get." Added Jamie. Reggie laughed and crossed his arms.

"There's one thing I don't get still, can't you make another robot and get rich by selling it? You could be the richest guy on earth, Mr. Lawson!" Said Reggie. Ted clicked his tongue and cleared his throat.

"Well, she's got a long way to go there, Reg. Vicki might be smart- really smart, but it's hard for her to really understand human interactions sometimes. Deep down inside, her brain is constantly running at full capacity just to follow along with simple stuff that you and I take for granted." Said Ted. He turned off the avenue and towards the street where Reggie's house stood.

"Like what?" Asked Reggie.

"Like not almost taking her hand off when someone asks if they can get a hand." Interjected Jamie. "That's why she acts like such a dork sometimes, she doesn't know any better yet." He added.

" _Jamie_." Said Ted, not at all appreciative of his son's example. "She just needs a lot of refining, that's all, and interacting with people is the best way to do just that! One day she'll be the model for a whole line of robots- ready to help the sick and disabled." Said Ted.

"Well sure, but being rich couldn't hurt along the way!" Offered up Reggie. "If you ask me, I think RadioShack should get exclusive rights." He said.

"Dad, he's got a point- about being rich I mean. It sure would be nice to have a full college fund." Said Jamie, slipping the Ok sign to Reggie in the back seat.

"You're right Jamie, maybe we can sell you off to the circus and get rich that way." Said Ted as he smiled. They had reached Reggie's house and pulled over for his exit.. "Okay Reggie, here we are. I tell ya, it's a relief how understanding you are of everything- so is our secret safe with you?" He asked, very hopefully.

"Sure thing, I wouldn't have gone blabbing either way- I still like Vicki. Even if she does have more in common with my Atari than she does with me!" Said Reggie, as he laughed and shook his head. "Just so long as she doesn't go up against me in a spelling bee. I might scream unfair advantage then!" He said, jokingly. Then he opened the car door and got out.

"Thank you Reggie, that's a load off our minds! You come visit us whenever you like- even if it's to bug us with more questions~!" Said Ted, as he patted the side of his car door. "Or for our air conditioning." He added. Reggie nodded and bent down to see inside the car.

"I will! Thanks Mr. Lawson!" Said Reggie. Then he looked in at Jamie. "Bye Jamie, I'll see you tomorrow at school!" He said. Jamie nodded and waved, and Reggie turned to leave for his house. Ted slowly pulled the car away from the curb and headed off back towards the Lawson house.

"You're pretty lucky to have a friend like that, Jamie. If he ever drops a bombshell on you, you'd better remember this~." Said Ted. Jamie nodded.

"Yeah." He said absently, as he watched the town go by in his window.

* * *

That Monday in class had started off quite nicely for Jamie. He sat in his world history class and doodled in his notebook as the class watched a film projection about Europe in the medieval ages. He had drawn a funny looking knight with an oversized helmet riding a tiny cartoon donkey, and when the history teacher happened to see the sketch, he was so taken with the drawing that he put it up on his desk right next to the assignment turn in box. Usually, something like that would've landed him in trouble, but Jamie could feel that today was going to be different. Something had definitely changed, and today at lunchtime Jamie, Reggie, and Vicki would all be able to sit down and eat without the weird air that had been around them.

It would be a welcomed change. Jamie smiled and thought back on the way things had used to be with his friend, Reggie. They had almost always had good times together, even later in middle school with Vicki and Harriet in the mix. He and Reggie had been like two peas in a pod, and Jamie really missed those days. Besides all that, it would be good to know someone else would be watching out for his sister too. Even if she didn't exactly need anyone to watch over her anymore.

At just that moment, in the Advanced placement Algebra class, someone was doing exactly that. As Vicki went about quickly answering the equations that the teacher was writing on the blackboard, a group of girls behind her had begun to take notice of the quiet and reserved brain in the conservative corduroy dress in front of them… They had her sussed out as being not quite right. She was, in a word, freaky. The second smartest girl in the glass snickered out with her two cohorts, and whispered to each other as the teacher finished up the last math problem. Finally the teacher wrote off to the side of the other math problems a very odd looking equation on the board. He underlined it and drew some stars and sparkles around it.

"Here we go. Can anyone tell me the name of the last equation I wrote?" Asked the teacher, Mr. Golden. Vicki raised her hand, but the teacher looked around for any other volunteers. Obviously if she did know the answer, the little know-it-all saw it on television… obviously. "Vicki?" Said Mr. Golden, as he sat down in his chair, slightly amused.

"That is Euler's Identity, named after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler. It can be used with natural logarithms and exponential functions to get growth and decay rates." Answered Vicki, as she put her hand down. The girls again snickered, and Mr. Golden gave her a surprised smile and nodded.

"That's correct! Wow! That's university level math- of course we're not going to use it, but it's pretty neat… I just wanted to show you guys something else besides that boring looking E=mc stuff." He said. "Vicki, where'd you learn that?" He asked, as he looked back down at his desk, where the seating arrangement was located.

"I read it in a book~." Answered Vicki.

"On my U.F.O." whispered one of the girls from behind her, mocking her monotone voice. Mr. Golden peered over his desk at the group of three girls behind the girl in the corduroy dress.

"Did you have something to share with the class?" He asked, once again looking down at his chart. "Veronica?" He added. The second smartest girl in the class simply shook her head.

"No." She said very politely, with a nice enough looking smile. Some of the other students in the class (including Vicki) had turned around to look at the three girls in question. Veronica, the ringleader as it were, seemed to take exception to Vicki looking in her general direction. She raised her eyebrows and cleared her throat, making the other two girls beside her giggle a little bit. Vicki turned back around, a little confused over the entire interaction with the other girl- but not at all invested in whatever it's final outcome would be.

The rest of the class had returned their attention back to the front of the class too- of course the rest of them were more aware of the implications of the interaction than Vicki was. The teacher continued to teach his lesson plan to the class, all the while ignoring the little hushed conversations going on in the room behind him as he wrote on his board. Vicki studiously followed along with the teacher, even though she already knew most of what his lesson was covering. She wasn't privy to the storm brewing a few seats behind her, or how she was going to be affected by it, but she did notice a few of the other students looking up and glancing in her direction for brief moments here and there. She looked around at a few of them, furrowing her brow as she tried to figure out why they were looking away from her whenever she noticed their quick looks- until Warren leaned over from his seat and got her attention.

"Just ignore them Vicki, they're just jealous of how smart you are." He whispered at her. "They always make fun of me too." He added. Vicki nodded and returned her attention to the board. The girls behind Vicki made a quiet oooing sound and then began to giggle amongst themselves. Vicki's processing of the event took a few moments, but she finally registered that if Warren had told her that they always made fun of him _too_ , it must mean that currently they were making fun of _her_. She searched out the correct response for the action, and she found that popular culture would agree with Warren. According to all the television programs, movies, and books on the subject matter, choosing to ignore the fact that one was being 'made fun of' was the correct course of reaction. Vicki actively ignored the girls behind her and continued on with the teacher.

Veronica proved hard to ignore, especially at the end of the class. When the first bell sounded and everyone got up from their desks to leave she approached Warren as he packed up his bag. Vicki packed her bag too (trying very hard to not overstuff it) and looked on as the other two girls joined Veronica as she harassed the poor tall nerd.

"So-o-o-o Warren~!" She began. "Do you know there's a Halloween dance in a few weeks? Us three are on the decorations and music setup for it, so we're all going to go- what about you?" She asked. Warren grimaced and zipped up his bag.

"I hadn't really thought about it- I might take my little cousins out trick or treating instead." He said, trying to be polite. Veronica lightly grabbed onto his book bag, preventing him from leaving.

"Oh- but I thought you two were kind of… you know? Going steady or something- you're always whispering to each other and walking to class together." She said. "You guys would make such a cute couple at the dance, you've got to go!" Said Veronica, sounding very sincere. Warren scrunched his mouth up, fully aware that Veronica might be winding him up. Vicki finished packing her bag and turned for the door, still uninvolved with the conversation.

"We're just friends- I don't think anyone would go to the dance with me." Said Warren, with a slight grin. He had beaten her to the punch, and now she would be totally at a loss of how to insult him. Veronica looked shocked and huffed out.

"Warren! That's not true- Vicki?" Asked the girl. Vicki stopped and turned to face her, stopping just short of the door to exit the class. "You'd go out with him to the dance if he asked you to, wouldn't you?" She asked. Vicki quickly processed the question in her parallel processor, and shrugged.

"I don't think I can attend- I'm only a freshman." She answered, in complete honesty. The girls around Veronica laughed a little.

"You can go if an upper classman asks you to go with them! If you two go, we'll definitely have a crowning to perform!" Said Veronica, as she moved with the gaggle of girls towards the door.

"A crowning?" Asked Vicki back to her. Veronica and the girls all pushed past her and exited the room.

"Sure, for the Halloween king and queen- you two are naturals!" Said Veronica, with a snide little laugh. She disappeared with the rest of the girls into the loud mess of moving bodies out in the hallway, leaving Vicki standing in the doorway, perplexed by the meaning of the girl's words.

"Like I said, just ignore them, they'll get bored and stop." Said Warren as he approached the door from behind her. "They're a bunch of valley girls anyways." He said, as he slung his bag over his shoulder. Vicki nodded and stepped out into the hallway, ready to get on with the rest of her day. She walked down the hallway with Warren following close behind her, and she considered what the girls had been saying to him about walking to class together. For the briefest of moments, Vicki weighed the options of not walking to the next class with Warren anymore- but quickly decided that it wouldn't really benefit her to walk alone. _Not really_ …

* * *

Later that day as Jamie and Reggie sat on the base of the flagpole in front of the school, waiting for Vicki to join them, the two boys discussed the very important matter of Halloween and trick or treating. It was strange that Reggie's preoccupation with Vicki had all but vanished, but Jamie was grateful for it. In all honesty, Jamie too was interested in grasping onto the last bits of youthful fun to be had around the upcoming holiday, the two of them would only be getting older after all. It was likely the last Halloween that Jamie and Reggie could spend trick or treating, going to parties, or staying in and watching movies. It would be on a Tuesday this year, not a very good night for revelry, but the next time the holiday would land on a weekend wouldn't be until they were both in college.

"I think we should try to get into one of the older kids' party here at school." Said Reggie, as he sipped his carton of milk. "I'll bet the seniors do awesome things!" He said. Jamie nodded and looked around, trying to find Vicki.

"Yeah, it would be neat to do something exciting I guess… I wonder if there'll be any haunted houses or graveyard tours this year?" He said. "Anything's better than that lame hayrack ride we went to a few years ago." He added.

"You mean the one where that guy dressed up as Dracula tripped on his cape and fell in the mud? I thought it was funny that we had to stop the ride to go back and make sure he was alright- man, I've never seen the prince of darkness look so much like the prince of _dorkness_!" Said Reggie with a laugh. "Dracula never scared me anyways. Hey, I wonder where Vicki is." He added, looking around too. They both looked towards the opening door of the school and smiled as Vicki finally appeared.

"There she is…" Said Jamie. He watched as his sister approached, with a slight frown on her face and a singular apple in her hand. She sat down on the edge of the base and greeted them both.

"Hello." She said, rather flatly. Jamie and Reggie looked at each other, and then back to Vicki.

"Are you okay, Vicki? You sound less than perky." Said Jamie. Vicki nodded and began to silently clean her apple with a napkin. She stopped halfway through the cleaning and put the apple into her lap. "What's the matter?" Asked Jamie, as he took a bite out of his sandwich.

"I want to stop walking with Warren to my A.P. classes." Stated Vicki. Reggie raised his eyebrows.

"What for? Is he getting too fresh?" He asked, a hint of humor in his voice. Jamie smiled a little bit.

"What's he doing? Is he bothering you?" Asked Jamie. Vicki nodded, her monotone timber had seemingly returned and Jamie slightly frowned at the sound of her voice.

"He's bothering me." She said as she picked up her apple again. Vicki looked at the apple and frowned. It didn't matter whether the apple had dirt on it or not. Not only did it not matter whether or not the apple was dirty, it didn't even really matter whether or not Vicki would eat the apple in the first place! She wasn't even certain why she had stood in line at the cafeteria to purchase the singular fruit- had it been a routine that she was blindly following? The only reason she had been eating at school in the first place was to fit in with the other kids- that was one of Ted's stipulations for her attending high school with Jamie, to _fit in_. Vicki no longer had to fit in around Reggie, she understood that fact- she had understood it for two days, sixteen hours, eight minutes, and forty two seconds exactly… and yet she had brought the slightly dirty apple with her to the flag pole.

"Not hungry after all, huh?" Asked Reggie, as he bit into his own apple. Vicki shook her head and placed the apple on the base of the flagpole.

"Not hungry." She replied.

"So what's Warren doing that's bothering you so much? Is he staring again?" Asked Jamie.

"That'd make me lose my appetite too!" Said Reggie as he laughed. Vicki tried to compute the question that Jamie had posed. Why did Warren bother her? Strange things began to happen in her parallel processing unit, and Vicki dug deep into her bubble memory module to find any pertinent data on the subject. She even went over all the dialogue she had stored between herself and Warren, but nothing added up to an actual rational explanation. Her CPU finally provided her with an acceptable answer.

"I'm not sure." She said with a shrug. Jamie gave her a nod.

"Sounds like all of the above! Alright Vicki, we'll tell him to back off for you." Said Jamie, as he finished off his sandwich. "It'll break his heart, but it's better than you breaking one of his legs to get away from him~!" He said, jokingly. Reggie laughed too.

"Hey that reminds me, I think we're doing some soccer in gym class today! I saw a bunch of kids playing earlier during third hour! Vicki, I hope you don't accidentally send some poor kid into orbit." Said Reggie. "I don't think the shin guards we're using are industrial strength." He added. Jamie smiled and put an arm around Vicki's shoulder.

"Don't worry Reggie, my dad has the whole thing taken care of all year long~!" Said Jamie.

"Yeah? How's that?" Asked Reggie.

"I have asthma." Said Vicki, very plainly. Reggie shook his head at the both of them.

"What?! Jamie, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought your dad told me that she can push a car uphill at 30 miles an hour. How could she have asthma?" Asked Reggie.

"Because if Vicki has asthma, she'll never have to worry about kicking a ball too hard in gym class!" Said Jamie, as he tapped his nose. Reggie raised his eyebrows and tapped his nose too.

"I get it, that's pretty smart! Man, I wish my dad could get a doctor to excuse me from History class!" Said Reggie. "So what are you going to be doing during soccer then, Vicki?" He asked. Vicki tapped her nose too, as she answered him.

"Wheezing." She said.

In fact, Vicki hardly did any wheezing at all during the soccer game that gym class. She sat on the bleachers outside of the school, with three other kids of varying disorders and excuses. The four of them sat collectively staring at the fun being had out on the field, and they each in their own ways yearned to have a go at kicking the little black and white ball too. Vicki was excellent in plotting vector paths and applying trajectory to things that she was physically moving. She was sure that by now she would have gained around six points for her team, had she been allowed to join in the activity.

"No- you ask her!" Hissed one of the excused teenage boys sitting on the bleachers. Vicki turned her attention to the two arguing boys, and they both froze in fear. They sat behind her, above a few steps, and looked back down across the field, pretending to watch the game with more gusto than they had been. Vicki looked at the other youth on the bleachers in front of herself, and noted that he was a slightly overweight boy with a broken arm. She correlated the data and turned back around to the two arguing boys behind her- they were most likely talking about her.

"Did you want to ask me a question?" She asked, very politely. The boy that she had originally heard gulped down some air and shook his head. The other boy nodded, however.

"Uhm… don't get mad at us, okay? It's just that we don't believe it- unless it's true, then we totally believe it- as long as you don't get mad!" Said the boy. Vicki shook her head, his sentence structure had left her completely perplexed.

"Okay." She said, acknowledging his want to keep her from getting mad. The boy nodded and bit his lip.

"We heard that you and Warren are kind of… you know…" He started to say. "Going steady?" He asked.

"No." Stated Vicki, in a very piercing monotone. The boy frowned and shrunk down into the bleacher.

"Sorry! I didn't think so." He said. Vicki turned back around and looked out over the field. Her parallel processor started to quantify the two boys and their incorrect data into a complex equation of exponential growth and radial source. Vicki tried very hard to watch the soccer game, but the equation soon took over her cognitive functions. The math spoke for itself. Since the end of her first hour class, Vicki had been incorrectly paired with Warren as 'going steady or something' and after only three additional hours, two complete strangers had been informed of the false claim. Vicki decided to add a control to her equation, and she stepped down the bleachers toward the kid with the broken arm. He looked up at her as she came down the steps and he smiled when she sat down next to him.

"Hi!" Said the boy.

"Hi." Said Vicki, as she looked over at the field again. She pressed her knees together and rested her hands in her lap as the boy looked on. "Do you know who Warren's new girlfriend is?" Asked Vicki, as she looked over at him.

"Some freshman girl named Vicki, I think." Said the boy. Vicki got up from the bleachers, and calmly stepped down the rest of the way. She rounded the railing of the steps, not knowing exactly where she was going or what she was going to do, Vicki wasn't paying much attention to the jagged screws sticking out of the railing and as a result her gym shirt became ensnared on a sharp bit of metal. She tugged on the shirt, trying to pry it loose, but instead her shirt tore from the strain. The rip went almost all the way up to her armpit, and her shirt was still stuck.

"Are you okay?" Asked one of the boys from the top of the bleachers. Vicki ignored him, her face seemed to be malfunctioning- she could sense it. She registered that it was much warmer than usual and she thought it best not to answer the boy. Her parallel processor started to zero in on the source of the exponential growth of misinformation, and it centered around one face and one name. _Veronica_. Her flashing face filled Vicki's vision, complete with the snide little smile that she had used when talking to her about the Halloween dance crowning. She tugged on her shirt once more and the rip finally split her sleeve. The gym shirt was ruined, and the boys on the bleachers gasped out. There was only one answer to her problem.

Vicki wrenched the railing from it's base and bent it inwards on itself, freeing the rest of her shirt from the destroyed and mangled rubble that used to be attached to the steps of the bleachers. She gave herself a satisfied nod, and left for the gymnasium's bathrooms- leaving behind her three utterly terrified teenage boys. It was a slow and determined march towards the doors of the gymnasium- Vicki tied her ripped up shirt into a knot at her side, ignoring the passing looks of two other girls who were coming out of the doors that she was going towards.

"Are you okay?" Asked one of the girls, as Vicki pressed past them. She didn't respond and they continued away from her back to the field. She had finally reached the doors and she went to grab one of the door's handle to open it up. The door wouldn't budge. She tried the other door and found that it too wouldn't open. Her only option was to pound on the door and get someone's attention from the other side- she brought her balled up fist down on the door three times, loudly hitting the door in a succession of knocks.

The door came crashing down off of it's hinges on the third pounding, and a very surprised looking senior stood on the other side of the door frame- looking down at Vicki. She recognized him as her tall blonde senior buddy from the first day of school, the one who tried to teach her how to throw a basketball correctly. His mouth hung open and he reached out and shook Vicki by her shoulders.

"Holy cow! Are you okay?!" He asked her, as a few more seniors came running over to the scene.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?" Asked Vicki, as she shook her head. The blonde senior boy ushered her inside the gymnasium as two other seniors inspected the downed door and it's frame.

"Man, her parents could sue the school! Did you see how close that came to smashing her?!" Said one of the seniors, a boy with a scruffy little goatee and a messy hairdo, as he and the other senior tried to lift it back up off of the ground.

"It looks like the hinges were loose- look at all the bolts on the ground…" Said the other senior, a plain looking girl in some thick nerdy looking glasses. The two of them lifted the door and leaned it against the frame, and they both turned to look at her.

"What happened? Did it just fall down? We should probably go get Ms. Piers." Said the blonde senior boy, who still had her by the shoulder.

"I just needed to get in so that I could change my shirt." Said Vicki, as she turned so that the boy could see her ruined gym outfit. The boy's face turned a shade more red and he let go of her shoulder.

"Oh- well go ahead- sorry!" He said, suddenly sounding very sheepish. Vicki turned on her heels without a word, and left for the girls' locker room. When she had finally reached the bathroom section of the locker room, Vicki looked in the mirror and saw that she too had changed a few shades redder. She examined her reflection and checked her internal temperature- it came back as a normal reading. Something strange had happened to Vicki, and she had absolutely no way of knowing what it was.

* * *

Jamie and Reggie both looked panicked as they entered the final hour class, biology. Jamie searched for his sister, and found her calmly sat at the back table, reading through the biology text book, where she had been assigned to sit with Ernie. Ernie was as usual late to class.

"Vicki! What happened to you?" Whispered Jamie, as he and Reggie went over to her table. "Did you knock that door down?" He whispered in a very hushed tone.

"It was an accident, the door was stuck." She whispered back.

"What about the bleachers? Was that an accident?" Asked Reggie in a hushed tone. Vicki shrugged.

"My shirt was caught on the railing, and I had to bend it to get my shirt free." She said. Jamie and Reggie looked at each other, and then back to Vicki.

"Vicki, are you okay?" Asked Jamie. Vicki placed her book down on the table in front of her, and looked up at Jamie.

"Yes- why does everyone keep asking me that?" She asked back with a furrowed brow. Reggie raised his eyebrows and left for his seat, while Jamie gave a concerned look to his robotic sister.

"Because normally you don't go around ripping up bleachers and knocking down security doors, that's why. I almost think that you're acting kind of…" Said Jamie, trailing off. Vicki raised an eyebrow at him.

"Kind of what?" She asked finally. Jamie shook his head and looked up as the teacher entered the room.

"Nothing, it's okay. Just keep it together till the end of class, alright?" Said Jamie, as he left to join Reggie. Vicki shrugged and slightly rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I'll keep it together." She said. The bell rang just as Ernie entered into the classroom, to the light applause of the biology teacher, Mr. Perry. He trotted over to his seat by Vicki, and she looked up at him with a slight smile to greet him. Ernie didn't return the gesture- and instead he sat down on his chair and opened up his book bag. Vicki noted that he was acting out of character, he had always at least said 'hi' to her whenever he had entered class. She shrugged it off and turned towards the teacher.

Mr. Perry was busy scribbling on his blackboard, one hand on the chalk, the other holding his signature coffee mug. He finished his wild looking writing and turned towards the students. He stared around at the sea of faces looking back at him and one by one took a count of their heads, using the chalk as a guide. He gave himself a nod and mumbled something to himself as he turned back to the board and sipped at his coffee mug, scribbling more words down on the board. The students all began to chatter quietly at their tables, and the sounds of text books opening up filled the air. Ernie nudged Vicki in the shoulder as the teacher was writing, to get her attention. She turned her head and looked towards him.

"Can I look from your book, I must've left mine at home." He said to her in a quiet voice. She nodded and turned around the rest of the way and put the book between the two of them. She opened the book to the first page written on the board and shared the book with Ernie- who only briefly looked down at the page before resting his jaw in his hands and staring out of the class window. Vicki noticed his gaze, and looked out of the window too. She didn't see anything outside except the few trees at the back of the building and the glimmering metal from cars in the parking lot.

"What are you looking at?" She asked him, finally breaking the quiet mood around them. Ernie returned his focus to the book and shook his head, an almost angry expression on his face.

"Nothing- I was just bored." He said, very flatly. Vicki nodded and continued reading the page. Once again, she found herself to be too fast for her lab partner. She waited patiently for Ernie to finish reading and looked back out of the window again. This time she did see something worth looking at- an exchange between two of the older kids in the school. Vicki reasoned out that they must have been purposefully not attending class. They sat beneath one of the trees and leaned in on each other, a boy and a girl, back to back as the girl read from a tiny booklet aloud. She zoomed in on their mouths, and constructed the dialogue from their moving lips. They were both speaking French, practicing for class maybe. It seemed like an average study session until the boy reached around and began to tickle the girl as she read, she hit him playfully with the book and read on even though he looked more intent on grabbing the book away from her.

Vicki recognized the similarities between the kids under the tree, and Ernie and herself. Both sets of students were studying from one text book, and Ernie was a boy whereas Vicki was classified as a girl, mostly. She returned her attention to Ernie as he flipped the page of the book in front of them, and he silently read onward. She noted his unusual cold demeanor once more and continued reading along.

"You look upset." Said Vicki, as she sat up right in her seat. Ernie shrugged and continued reading. Vicki pondered over tickling Ernie, just as the boy outside had tickled the girl- but her analytical thought processes estimated that Ernie wouldn't respond in the same way as the girl. She looked back down at the table and then back up to him. "Was it something I did?" She asked, in her hushed monotone like voice.

"No, geez- just drop it!" Hissed out Ernie, as he focused even harder on the page in front of them. Vicki scrunched her mouth up and continued to read the book. She had a strong inclination that she _had_ done something to upset him. Then there came a slight buzzing from the table behind them, and Ernie swung around to look at the kids at the table. The two girls and boy at the table quickly went quiet, and looked back down at their respective text books. Vicki watched as Ernie slowly turned back around in his seat, and slightly grimaced as he cracked his knuckles. They both returned to quietly reading the book, until at last Ernie spoke up. "Everyone thinks I'm gonna knock out your boyfriend." He said, trying to be quiet enough so that no one could hear. Vicki's eyes opened wide.

"I don't _have_ a boyfriend." She replied, in a whisper. Ernie angrily flipped to the next page of the book.

"I wouldn't care if you did or not!" He said, quite defensively. Vicki furrowed her brow and shook her head.

"Then who are you going to knock out?" She asked.

"No one! I just told you!" Said Ernie, in a little bit of a huff. "I ain't some meathead that just goes around punching nerds in the face for no reason!" He added. Vicki nodded and sat back in her chair.

"Okay." She said, simply. Ernie nodded back to her and focused again on the book.

"Okay." He said back, rather sharply.

* * *

The walk home from school was pretty quiet for the two Lawson children. Reggie, who would usually walk with them half way to their house before departing in a different direction towards his own, had opted to catch the city bus across town so that he could see his brother at work. As Jamie and his little robotic sibling Vicki trotted their way home, crunching the fallen leaves under their feet, a strange sort of silence surrounded them. Vicki seemed very absent as she followed along behind Jamie, and he would periodically turn around to glance at her just to make sure that she was still there. Eventually, as they reached their half-way mark, the wordless trek became too much for Jamie to bare any longer.

"Those bleachers were on their way out anyways, Vicki. Forget about it." He said, as he kicked at some large sycamore leaves. "They were mostly rust and rotten wood, I think you did the school a favor." He added. Vicki kicked at some leaves too and silently nodded in agreement with Jamie.

"Maybe I should break the swimming pool too, then the school could get a new one." She said, finally speaking up. Jamie turned and flashed a smile at her.

"Yeah, there you go! You could be like the school's good insurance claim fairy!" He said with a laugh. Vicki nodded and continued to follow him. Jamie narrowed his eyes at her, fixating on her face. There was something very off about his sister this afternoon, and Jamie wondered if it didn't have everything to do with Warren. It had been very odd to him that Vicki had just out of the blue mentioned how she didn't want to walk to class with Warren anymore… was he hassling her somehow? It was bizarre how Vicki was behaving- accidents certainly did happen from time to time, but ripping the railing off of the bleachers? Breaking down a secure gymnasium door?

"Are you going to go to the Halloween dance this month?" Asked Vicki in a very abrupt manner. She stared up at Jamie and he turned back around to face the direction that he was walking.

"No way, that thing's gonna be lame. A bunch of girls standing against one wall, and all the boys standing against the other." Said Jamie. He glanced back over his shoulder and looked at the expression on her face as he answered. "Me and Reggie are gonna go do something that's actually fun. Why, do you want to go to the dance or something?" He added.

"No." Said Vicki, very adamant in her decision. Jamie was taken aback, he widened his eyes and turned back towards her.

"Then why'd you ask?" He asked her. Vicki furrowed her brow and tilted her head to the side.

"I heard about it during my AP algebra class." She said, after thinking about her response for a while. Jamie slowed down until he was walking side by side with his sister, and he crossed his arms in front of him as they walked.

"Hmm." Said Jamie, as he looked down at her. Vicki looked up and shook her head.

"Hmm?" She said back. "What do you mean?" She asked.

"That's all. Just, hmm." Said Jamie. Vicki looked ahead and tried to process all the varying meanings behind Jamie's 'hmm,' and Jamie walked alongside her, quite certain that Warren had tried to pressure her into going to the afore mentioned dance. He liked Warren well enough, but Jamie wasn't going to let some nerd push his little sister around- especially when he'd been working on his 'tough guy' face all summer long.

The two kids finally reached their home and they plodded through the driveway, into the backyard area of the house. It was still a weird feeling for Jamie whenever he had to pull out his house key to get inside his own home. There was something very grown up about the whole act of unlocking the kitchen door and turning on the lights as he entered. Inwardly Jamie knew that plenty of kids his own age and younger did the same thing everyday, but still, every time he turned his key he always pictured himself as an old man going inside after a long day's work.

He opened the door and turned on the light, then entered into the kitchen followed closely by Vicki. Jamie immediately went for the refrigerator in search of an after school snack- while Vicki did her usual after school ritual. She gathered Jamie's backpack along with her own and carried them to Jamie's bedroom, picking up any other discarded articles along the way. As always, Vicki disappeared through the swinging living room door backpacks in tow, and Jamie sat at the kitchen table with a glass of orange juice.

Minutes passed by with Jamie happily gulping down his juice, a magazine out in front of him. The minutes grew longer, and by the time Jamie had looked up from his reading on ghouls and ghosts a full fifteen minutes had gone by. Jamie raised an eyebrow and quietly got out of his seat, slowly making his way to the swinging door he crept along trying to be as quiet as possible. He eased open the door and took a peek around. Nothing.

Not just nothing, but also no one. Vicki had never taken so long to put away the backpacks and come back to the kitchen. It was strange- Vicki didn't just normally come back to the kitchen after putting the things away in his room, she _always_ did and at a very fast rate. He scrunched his mouth to the side and continued onward towards his room, still maintaining a stealthy approach. He reached the bedroom and peered inside, a look of true confusion crossed his face as he finally saw what his sister was up to.

Vicki sat alone on Jamie's bed, the backpacks thrown in a heap beside her, and she looked out of the window seemingly in a daze of deep thought. Jamie thought that if she ever breathed, now would have been a perfect time for her to have sighed out. He straightened himself up and opened the door all the way.

"What are you doing Vicki?" Asked Jamie, as he entered the room. Vicki blinked and got up from the bed, and then hurriedly went about organizing the backpacks into the bedroom closet.

"I was thinking." She answered, as she finished her task. She turned and looked at Jamie. "Did you need me for something?" She asked. Jamie shook his head and leaned up against his doorframe, crossing his arms against his chest.

"No, I just got worried when you didn't come back… are you sure you're feeling okay?" Said Jamie. Vicki gave him a very positive nod.

"I'm in tip-top-shape~!" She said, with a big smile. "All of my systems are functioning at peak capacity." She added, with the slightest bit of monotone.

"Okay." Said Jamie. He uncrossed his arms and put his hands into his pockets.

"I'm going to start making dinner." Said Vicki. "How do you feel about stuffed green peppers?" She asked, as she joined him by the door.

"I don't know, what are they stuffed with?" Asked Jamie. Vicki shrugged and left out of the door towards the living room.

"With whatever I can find." She stated. Jamie frowned and stuck his tongue out.

"You'd better not find any beets!" He called out after her. He turned back around to his bedroom and went to fish out one of his many comic books from underneath his bed. Jamie's collection was getting extensive, and he knew it- it was starting to take a lot of time to find the book he was looking for. He found his treasure and turned around with a big smile on his face, only to have his victorious moment stolen from him by the red haired girl standing at his window. Jamie sighed out and went over to the window to open it, and he greeted his nosy neighbor with a hand on his hip. "Hey Harriet." He said, sounding a bit grim.

"Hiyee Jamie~!" Sang out Harriet, as she shot him a cheesy grin. "Your mom told me to tell you that she won't be home until later than usual. What's it like to be a latchkey child?" She said, as she waggled her eyebrows.

"What?! I'm not a latchkey child- I'm 15, Harriet, I can take care of myself!" Exclaimed Jamie. "It's not like I'm completely dependent on my mother for everything- I'm not _some middle schooler_." He said, in an accusing tone. Harriet shrugged.

"Oh yeah? Are you going to cook your own dinner?" She asked. Jamie narrowed his eyes at the freckled face in his window, and frowned.

"Well, no…" He began. Harriet smiled big and put her head to the side as she spoke.

"Well, you're gonna do your own laundry, aren't you?" She asked him. Jamie looked down and muttered to himself as he started to walk away from the window. "Hmm?" Asked Harriet, as Jamie continued towards his bed.

"Would ya' beat it Harriet, I'm trying to read!" He said, as he flopped down on his bed. Harriet smiled again and nodded.

"Okay, sure! I don't want to hang around outside your window all day anyways. I've got a bunch of friends from school coming over pretty soon! We're making plans for a Halloween party!" She said, as she slowly walked away from the window. Harriet looked over her shoulder to see if Jamie was paying her any attention, and seeing that he wasn't, she stopped in her tracks. "And not the little kid kind either- we're in eighth grade now! We might even watch some scary movies!" She added.

"Great." Said Jamie, as he flipped through his Batman comic. Harriet squinted at Jamie, and backed up a little to the window again.

"My mother even said that we can pick out a few gory ones too! Like one of those fright night movies with vampires and werewolves!" She said, trying to garner his fascination. Jamie sighed out and looked up from his comic book.

"Vampires and werewolves aren't even scary, Harriet, those monsters are totally for little kids." He said, unenthusiastically. "If you want a movie with an actual scary monster, you should go rent that Blob movie." Said Jamie.

"The blob huh? Sounds like it's about somebody with a big belly!" Said Harriet. Jamie got up from his bed and nodded.

"It sure is, it goes around sucking people into it's gooey center, and then it dissolves them- just like a giant amoeba!" He said excitedly. Harriet grimaced.

"That's gross. Gross, but effective~!" She said. "Jamie, since you know all the good scary movies, you should come over and help us make a list! It's supposed to be girls only, but I think we could make an exception!" Said Harriet. Jamie huffed out.

"No way Harriet, knowing you it'll be a room full of girls that you told I was your boyfriend. Forget it!" He said, returning to his comic. Harriet shrugged and walked away from the window.

"Fine, maybe I'll ask Vicki then! Living with you, she should be able to recognize a good horror show when she sees one!" She said. Jamie blinked and looked up from his comic. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel insulted by her last remark or not, but it did give him a great idea…

Joan opened the kitchen door and stepped inside her house. Her day had been excruciatingly long, from the end of the school day to the final paper that she graded at six in the evening, all she could think about was going home. She sighed out and leaned up against the door, taking in the pleasant aroma of the food cooking in the oven. She opened her eyes up just in time to see Ted walk into the kitchen through the swinging living room door. They both smiled at each other and Ted trotted over to her to give her the customary 'home from work smooch'.

"How was your day Joanie?" Asked Ted, as they stood with each other over by the stove. Joan gave him a light smile and a hug.

"It was long but it's over now. Can I ask how your workday went, or are your lips still sealed?" She asked, playfully tapping the side of Ted's mouth.

"Still sealed~ come on Joan, we don't want the men in black to bust in here, not right before dinner!" He replied, jokingly. In all seriousness, Ted really couldn't divulge any information about his day at work. For nearly a full month now, he had to keep quiet about the government funded project at work, even with his family.

"Speaking of dinner, did you peek and see what Vicki's cooking? It smells good!" Said Joan, as she broke away from Ted and made her way towards the refrigerator. "I'm absolutely starving! I couldn't find the time to catch anything for lunch besides a cheese sandwich- and a pretty crummy one at that." She said, as she opened the refrigerator door and grabbed out a carrot stick.

"Stuffed green peppers~!" Said Ted, as he stood over by the kitchen island, right across from his wife. "She was kind of mum on what exactly they're stuffed with, some leftovers from here and there, I think." He said. Joan nodded and bit into the stick.

"Sounds great~!" She said. Ted crossed his arms and nodded.

"Yeah, she's our own little food recycler! Reduce reuse recycle, even at the dinner table." He said with a smile. Then he scratched the back of his head. "So what took you so long at work tonight? Was there a lot of papers to grade?" He asked. Joan rolled her eyes and went to sit at the kitchen table.

"Oh Ted, you have no idea! I'm glad that all my students turn in their assignments on time, but I'm beginning to wish that just a few wouldn't!" She said. "Then I had to stay behind with the principal after school and two boys that were shoving each other around in the hallway! The one boy is always picking on the other, it was a time bomb waiting to go off." Said Joan. Ted sat down at the table with her.

"I hope they didn't rough each other up too badly!" He said, slightly concerned. "Boys have always been bullying other boys in school, it's just too bad that the parents don't get more involved- most of the problems kids have in school start from home." Said Ted. Joan gave him a nod.

"Well, two wrongs never make a right, but that bully was asking for it. I don't think he knew what hit him when that poor little shrimp came at him, it was like seeing Tiny Tim get a knock out on Muhammad Ali!" Said Joan, as she bit into the carrot. "I'm just glad that Jamie's days of dealing with bullies is over, I couldn't stand seeing him with a black eye again." She added.

"Yeah. And I couldn't stand seeing him in those sunglasses either." Said Ted, with a smile. The living room door swung open and Jamie hopped into the kitchen. He stood with his hands planted firmly on his hips, looking quite proud of himself. Ted and Joan both turned in their seats to look at him.

"Ahem!" Said Jamie. "Before you guys say anything, just picture this! Best Halloween costume, first place blue ribbon, above the fireplace mantle!" He said. Joan smiled.

"Okay, what is it? It looks like your normal clothes." She said.

"Not me, Vicki!" Said Jamie. Then he motioned for his sister to join him in the doorway. Vicki entered the kitchen too, dressed up in a white gown and wearing a shroud of sorts across her shoulders. "Show them, Vicki!" Said Jamie, as he put an arm around her shoulder. Vicki smiled and revealed to Ted and Joan her authentic looking vampire fangs.

"That's pretty neat Jamie! She looks like she could be on that Munsters show!" Said Ted, very impressed by the costume. Joan eyed Vicki's new shroud.

"Is that the curtain from the hallway?" She asked. Jamie smiled at his mother.

"It's only temporary! What do you think? She can even turn her eyes red, just like Dracula!" He said. Vicki nodded and she turned back towards her parents. She adjusted her lenses until her eyes did indeed have a red hue about them. Joan grimaced a little.

"That's enough of that, Vicki, I think I like them better brown." Said Joan. "That's impressive, you two! Are you thinking about going to one of those Halloween parties with the costume contests?" She asked.

"Me and Reggie wanted to do something actually fun this year, so I thought maybe a costume contest would be cool." Answered Jamie.

"What about trick or treating? I thought you and Reggie had fun doing that every year?" Asked Ted. Jamie nodded and frowned.

"Yeah but that's kid stuff, we're in high school now Dad, we don't wanna hang out with a bunch of middle school and elementary school kids. Besides, candy rots our brains, that's what you and mom always say." He said. Joan shrugged and finished her carrot.

"Well, okay. I kind of enjoyed walking around with you kids though, seeing all the spooky lawns and costumes. What do you think Vicki, think you'll have more fun at a costume party?" Asked Ted. Vicki nodded and flashed her fangs at him again.

"I'll be a natural." She said. A dinging noise emanated from somewhere within Vicki, and she stepped over to the oven. "Dinner is ready~." She said, as she threw her shroud over her shoulder- just as Jamie had taught her. Jamie sat down at the table too and lowered his voice as he leaned in towards his father.

"By the way, Dad, since you're both home now I guess I should tell you about today." Said Jamie, as he quickly glanced over his shoulder. Ted quickly looked back and forth between Jamie and Vicki and raised an eyebrow.

"Why? What about today?" Asked Ted, matching his son's hushed volume.

"Well, Vicki started acting kind of weird during the school day. I think it's because that Warren kid sort of asked her out to a school dance." Said Jamie. "Now she doesn't even want to so much as walk to class with him~ plus she accidentally broke a few things at gym class." He said.

"Broke a few things? What things?" Asked Ted, sounding almost upset.

"Just some old bleachers and a door- it could have happened to anyone." Said Jamie, now feeling a little bit like a snitch.

"Well not just anyone can tie a lead pipe into a knot! Did anyone get hurt?!" Asked Ted, still trying to be as quiet as possible.

"No Dad, she just had a bad day! I think it kind of affected her somehow, she's been real quiet all day, and when we got home she sat in my room for like half an hour just thinking." Said Jamie, as he shifted in his seat. "I think it all has to do with Warren bugging her, like he wouldn't take no for an answer." He added. Joan nodded.

"He's resilient, that's for sure." She said. Then she nudged Ted. "She'll never go through a teen angst, huh?" She asked, with a tiny grin. Ted sat back in his chair and folded his arms, just as Vicki came to the table with a pan full of green peppers, stuffed with chicken and rice.

"Chicken and Spanish rice stuffed green peppers with feta cheese." Said Vicki, as she set the pan down on the table. Ted smiled up at her.

"That looks great Vicki! Why don't you sit down and join us?" He said, scooting over closer to Joan. Vicki gave him a nod and took a seat next to Jamie. "Great!" Said Ted, as he put one of the green peppers on his plate.

Vicki didn't ever really have to eat anything, although most anything that she could ingest would instantly be broken down and stored as supplemental energy for later usage. It was a very neat trick that Ted had added to her roster of humanlike traits. Of all the outwardly humanlike traits that had been instilled in Vicki, there was one that she had dedicated herself to absolutely mastering, body language. Body language didn't come easy to Vicki, and her motion capturing software working in tandem with her facial recognition database had been consistently running on a twenty-four hour a day basis, just so that she could actuate something as simple as slouching her shoulders to show that she was relaxed.

Even then, the poor robot wasn't entirely certain that she was performing the right body posture for the intended nonverbal communication that real human beings seemed to so easily understand. Body language was difficult to say the least, but it was nothing compared to what Vicki's parents were sometimes able to do. Often times she had witnessed and even recorded the two of them passing glances at each other, Ted looking at Joan, and Joan looking back at Ted. A wealth of information would pass between the husband and wife, without a sound, without even a gesture! It was a scene that had played out regularly with Joan and Ted whenever Jamie was involved, he was often under scrutiny for one thing or another, and the passing glances were always used to uncover the truth behind his secrets and ploys.

The parental glancing had always been a point of curiosity for Vicki, but it was quite a different experience when she was the subject of the wordless information exchange.

"So Jamie told us that you might have had a bad day, huh?" Asked Ted, as he looked over at Joan. "Something about a dance?" He added. Vicki furrowed her brow and took a green pepper from the pan too.

"There's a Halloween dance at the school in two weeks, but I can't go. I'm an underclassman." She said, as she brought the pepper to her plate. "What's a bad day?" She asked, with a shake of her head.

"It's the kind of day when nothing goes your way." Said Joan, as she rested her chin in her hand. "When it almost seems like everyone is out to get you, and everything you touch just falls apart." She added, thinking back on her own day. Vicki thought over Joan's definition and finally she nodded.

"I had a bad day." Said Vicki. Ted gave her a little smile and a pat on the shoulder.

"Well, the good news is that tomorrow's another day!" He said. "And you don't have to go anywhere with anyone that you don't want to." Added Ted. Vicki tilted her head to the side, a little confused by Ted's words. Just as she opened her mouth to say something, Joan spoke up again.

"That's right, Vicki, and you know what? You don't ever have to feel like you need to give a good reason to say 'no' to any boy that asks you to a dance, or a movie, or anything like that. Sometimes it's better to just leave it at that, that way no one gets their feelings hurt." Said Joan. Vicki gave her a nod and dedicated what Joan had said to her into her bubble memory.

"Yeah, besides that Warren is kind of a goof. You can do way better than that clown." Said Jamie, as he bit into his pepper. Ted shook his head at his son.

"Jamie." He said in a scolding tone. "All that aside Vicki, remember that you've absolutely got to be as gentle as possible in school- with everything and everyone! What happened with the bleachers?" Said Ted.

"My gym shirt got caught on the railing, and I pulled the railing up to free it." Said Vicki, with a tiny shrug. "I did the school a favor." She added. Jamie stifled a laugh and continue to eat his dinner.

"That's not too far off Ted, you saw those bleachers!" Said Joan. "It's a miracle that half the student body never got tetanus from those seats." She added, with a wry smile. Ted smiled back and then looked over to Vicki.

"Well just don't go around doing them any more favors, or we'll all be in trouble." Said Ted. Vicki gave him a nod. "Can you imagine if we were billed for all the damages to that school? The superintendent would have a field day!" He added.

"If he has a field day, he'll have new bleachers to sit on." Said Vicki. Jamie laughed out and was instantly scolded by Ted. Vicki brought her pepper to her mouth and examined the stuffing closely.

"What's the matter Vicki?" Asked Joan, as she took a bite. Vicki shook the pepper in her hands and looked at Joan.

"I'm thinking of the best way to eat the stuffed pepper." She answered.

"What do you mean? Just use a fork." Said Ted. Vicki shrugged.

"I could eat the middle first." She stated. Then she opened her mouth wide and sunk her vampire fangs into the green pepper.

"Ack! Vicki! Go take those out! There'll be no fangs at this table!" Said Joan, as she plucked the green pepper out of Vicki's hands. "And put that curtain back up in the hallway!" Demanded Joan, as Vicki got up from the table, and slunk out of the kitchen door with the shroud over her face.

"She's right, she's a natural." Said Ted, with a big smile on his face.

* * *

Something didn't seem too appetizing in threatening Warren that next morning for Jamie. He stood by the flagpole with his sister Vicki, waiting for Reggie to arrive, thinking about the best way to confront his little sister's would be suitor. Initially Jamie had thought that he would be as tough as John Wayne or Don Johnson, grabbing the nerd by the collar and ruffling his feathers- but the closer the time got for the confrontation the worse he felt about the whole thing. As Jamie was thinking over the entire spectacle to come, Vicki tugged on his shirt.

"Here comes Reggie." She said to him. Jamie looked up and smiled at his approaching friend. Reggie came trotting up to the two Lawson kids and tucked his thumbs into his pants.

"Hey Jamie! Hey Vicki!" Said Reggie. "Man, I wish you could have gone with me yesterday, my brother had to get rough with some teenager at the movie theatre! There was popcorn everywhere!" He said, very excitedly.

"Why? What was going on?" Asked Jamie, as the three of them started to make their way to the school entrance.

"My brother's gotten scammed twice by the same kid- I guess he's been sneaking into the movies a lot since my brother got a job there. Last night the popcorn girl caught him and told him to leave." Said Reggie. "So the guy made a fuss, and my brother tried blocking his way into the movies- they knocked the popcorn machine over in the fight!" He said.

"Did anyone get hurt?" Asked Jamie, a little let down that he didn't get to see the excitement. Reggie shook his head.

"Nah, he just scared him away. He gave him a few good reasons not to go to the movies for awhile!" He said. Jamie nodded, and Vicki opened the doors to the school.

"I don't need a good reason not to go to the movies." Stated Vicki, as they entered the school. Reggie looked over at Jamie confusedly and then back to Vicki.

"Say what?" He asked. Jamie scrunched his mouth to the side and lugged his bag up over his shoulder.

"Our Mom had a talk with Vicki about how to say no to boys asking her out and stuff." Said Jamie. Reggie nodded and got a strange almost worried look on his face. Vicki pointed towards her first hour class.

"I'm going into class early to copy down the black board into my notebook." Said Vicki. Jamie wiped some sweat from his brow and nodded her on.

"Okay Vicki, you go ahead, we'll see you at lunch." He said. Vicki returned his nod and left for her advanced placement algebra class, leaving Jamie and Reggie standing alone. Jamie looked over at Reggie.

"Well, I've gotta find someway to tell Warren to keep his mitts off of Vicki. I was gonna try to be all tough, but I don't want to be a bully about it, all he did was ask her to a stupid dance." Said Jamie. Reggie clicked his tongue and shifted his weight uneasily. Jamie blinked at him. "What is it?" He asked.

"Jamie, I think your Mom had that talk a little late with Vicki." Said Reggie. Jamie looked genuinely surprised at Reggie's words.

"What do you mean? Why?" He asked.

"I kind of thought that you already knew, but word's gotten around school that Vicki is Warren's girlfriend. That's all anyone could talk about in math class yesterday." Said Reggie.

"What?!" Exclaimed Jamie. "That little dork's been running around telling everyone that he's going out with my sister?!" Said Jamie, very angrily. Reggie grimaced.

"It's just a rumor Jamie, don't blow a fuse!" Said Reggie, as the first bell rang out. "Besides, if you wanna get tough with Warren, you'd better wait your turn. I heard that big ape Ernie is gonna knock him out!" He said, with a tiny bit of amusement. Jamie huffed out.

"Why would he do that?" He asked. Reggie smiled and started down the hallway for his own first hour class.

"I don't know Jamie, maybe you should ask him yourself!" He said, almost jokingly. Jamie fumed and sighed out, and started up the stairs for his first hour class as well. Halfway up the stairs, he came face to face with the unfortunate tall nerd in the black rimmed glasses.

"Hi Jamie! Did you see-" Began Warren. Jamie cut him off and poked Warren in the chest with his index finger, backing him into a corner on the big multi level stairs.

"Warren! You better keep away from my sister from now on!" He yelled at him. "And if I ever hear about you lying to people about how you're going out with her again- I'll give you a fat lip so big that your own mother won't be able to look at you!" He shouted, as other students stopped to watch the drama unfold. Warren grew as pale as a sheet of paper, and he adjusted his glasses.

"I don't know what you're talking about…" He began. Jamie poked him again.

"You're a big fat liar! Vicki isn't ever going to go out with you, and she doesn't need you walking with her to class from now on! Got it?!" He said, jabbing the finger at Warren. Warren's face went a little red and he nodded. "Good!" Said Jamie, as he turned and climbed the stairs to his history class, leaving a very embarrassed and shaken Warren on the stairs.

At some point, while Vicki sat at her desk quietly copying the blackboard material down into her notebook, Veronica and her two cohorts entered the AP algebra room with a peal of laughter and chatter. They continued jabbering away all the way to their seats behind Vicki, only quieting down when the teacher entered the room. He stood at his desk and looked slightly miserable, gulping from his coffee mug as he turned to the blackboard. His cup slid from his hands and hit the floor, as he scrambled to wipe the offending words from the blackboard. Some of the students murmured and looked around, trying to spot who the culprit might have been. Vicki meanwhile, looked very confused, and read the material in her notebook.

She didn't quite understand what the words meant, but she had the overall idea that they were inappropriate- still, since they had been on the blackboard Vicki thought that the string of words might have been pertinent to the day's lesson. It was clearly evident that it was not, and when the teacher turned to glare at the student, or students that were responsible, Vicki decided to close her notebook up and hide the message therein. Veronica gasped out, and her two friends made equal sounds of surprise in Vicki's general direction.

"Who put that on the board?!" Asked the teacher. "Who was the first one in class?!" He asked. Vicki slowly raised her hand, and the girls behind her let out a giggle. The teacher stared at Vicki in disbelief, and he opened his mouth to say something- anything, but simply could not.

"I didn't write that on the board, but I was the first one in class today." Said Vicki. The teacher sat down at his desk, his face red with either anger or embarrassment. Vicki couldn't really judge which emotion the teacher was displaying, so she decided on the possibility that it was both- he was angrily embarrassed.

"Good." Said the teacher, a little flatly, as he took out his seating arrangement chart. He studied the sheet of paper for what seemed like an eternity, looking up periodically around the classroom. The teacher seemed to stop at Vicki once or twice, looking intently at her closed up notebook. He looked up again and focused on the empty seat next to hers. "Has anyone seen Warren Enright today?" Asked the teacher, as he stood up and started to write down a huge assignment on the board. No one answered, and Vicki looked over to the empty chair.

Warren had missed school exactly once in the entirety of his middle school student career. Vicki knew this from Warren's extensive scholar awards during the end of the school year assemblies. He regularly received the perfect attendance award save for once, because of the one day that he spent at a computer science expo in the silicone valley. Of course Ted was there, along with Vicki herself. She had put together that Ted had only attended the expo to reaffirm to himself that he was miles ahead of anyone else in his respective field of robotics, that was clear from the ever increasing smile on his face as they passed big blocky robots that continually fell over in their demonstrations.

It was at one of those demonstrations that Ted and Vicki had bumped into Warren. Literally in fact, Ted bumped into the then much shorter nerd and had knocked him over onto the ground, and when Vicki helped him back up to his feet they instantly recognized his face. She remembered that he was very quick to explain away why he wasn't in school that day, and that no one had to know that he was at the expo instead of in class. Most kids would skip class to go to the movies or to the mall, but Warren skipped class once to educate himself. Vicki suspected that something had gone wrong for the nerd.

"Vicki, have you seen Warren today?" Asked one of Veronica's cohorts, softly enough so that the teacher couldn't hear. Vicki turned in her chair to face the girl. "I heard your brother was throwing him around on the stairs before class." Added the girl. Vicki shook her head.

"I haven't seen him…" She started to say. The teacher cleared his throat, and Vicki turned back around to face him. He sighed out and returned to writing on the board. A few minutes went by, and finally one of the girls spoke up again.

"Well I heard that some boy named Ernie was going to kick his teeth in." Whispered the other cohort, making Vicki turn around again. "He was really mad." She added. Vicki blinked and turned back around to the blackboard, just in time to see the teacher huff out at seeing her turned in her seat again. Vicki went about taking in the new assignment, as the teacher continued more writing further down the board.

She easily processed the assigned pages, having already cataloged the textbook into her memory. Such middling algebraic problems posed little in the way of runtime for Vicki's higher processing power. Calculating her brother Jamie's supposed aggressive actions on Warren, who might also possibly have his teeth kicked in by Ernie, for whatever the cause was a tad more time consuming. Vicki sat there looking at the board thinking about the three boys, finally computing that there was vital data missing for her solution. She turned back around to the girls, who were chatting amongst themselves quietly.

"Why would Ernie be mad?" Asked Vicki. Veronica smiled, in a manner that Vicki didn't quite comprehend. She saved the image of the smile to her bubble memory, and waited for an answer.

"I don't know~." Said Veronica, in a very innocent tone. "Maybe you should go ask him~." She added. Then her two cohorts giggled out, and the teacher spun around from the blackboard.

"Ms. Lawson? Are you confused about where the front of the class is located?" He asked. Vicki turned around to face him, and shook her head. "Then maybe you can demonstrate for us where the office is too?" He asked.

"The office is downstairs by the main entrance of the school." Stated Vicki. The teacher sat back down at his desk, still red in the face.

"Then you shouldn't have any trouble finding it- take your notebook with you." He said, sounding quite mad. Vicki gathered her notebook up and got up from her desk, as the other students around her fell into a hush.

"To where am I taking my notebook with me?" Asked Vicki, slightly confused by the teacher's request. The girls behind her laughed out and the teacher stood up from his chair and hurriedly opened the classroom door for her.

"To the office! Now!" He said, almost shouting. Vicki nodded and quickly went for the door. "You can be disruptive all you want in the principal's office!" Said the teacher after her, as he hit his intercom button.

* * *

Reggie's first hour class had been especially humiliating that day as well. He walked down the hallway hoping against all hope that no one would see him in his tall stupid marching band hat. Of all the regrets that Reggie had accrued in his first month of high school, joining band class had been at the top of the list. He knew that there would be funny suits involved, he even knew that sometimes he'd have to make an appearance at the local retirement home, and he was fully aware of the fact that his particular instrument, the snare drum, was chief amongst the most annoying and loud implements of the band room. Knowing all that, Reggie still joined the band, because firstly- he was very good at keeping time on a drum. Secondly, he was bound to meet a few cute band girls in class, and maybe even some of those hot to trot baton twirlers. Reggie's reasons for attending class may have been shallow, but sadly enough his drumming was the best of the entire high school, and worse yet, the entire marching band.

"I should have stuck to the xylophone." Muttered Reggie to himself, as he walked down the hall towards the front office. He adjusted his big stupid feathered hat and sighed out, taking another look around to make sure no one was staring and or laughing at him. As he rounded the oddly bent hallway with the large windows, Reggie saw a familiar and welcomed face coming toward him. He nervously smiled, wondering if the 'girl' in front of him would pass judgment on his marching hat. "Hey Vicki!" Said Reggie, with a little nod. The little nod caused the feather in the front of Reggie's hat to wobble forward, and he hastily straightened it back up.

"Hey Reggie." Replied Vicki. She looked different today somehow, her brow more furrowed than usual, and her face had an unusual blush to it. Reggie looked down at her and adjusted his hat again.

"Where are you going?" He asked. "I'm going to the office so the principal can talk to me about joining the marching band. The band teacher wants me to play with the juniors and seniors already!" He said, sounding exasperated.

"I'm going to the office too." Said Vicki. Reggie nodded again, and again fixed his wobbly feather.

"I'm not surprised, if they knew how smart you really are, they'd have you teaching math class." Said Reggie, with a little smirk. "So why are you going in? Are you like the T.A. or something?" He asked. Vicki shook her head.

"No, I'm going to the office so that the principal can talk to me about being disruptive in class." She said. Reggie blinked at her, and fixed his ever wobbling feather again.

"Say again? _You're_ being disruptive in class? How?" Asked Reggie, genuinely curious. Vicki shrugged.

"I'm not sure… I think I was turned in my seat too much. I was listening to Veronica and her friends." She said. Reggie scratched his chin, and started putting two and two together.

"Hmm." He said. Vicki nodded.

"Hmm." She repeated.

"Well maybe you shouldn't talk to them, Vicki, if that's the Veronica I'm thinking about. She's pretty mean to one of the girls in my language arts class, she even made her cry last week!" Said Reggie. "I don't think your dad would want you hanging out with her, besides everyone calls her 'teen witch' behind her back. I guess that would make her friends a couple of flying monkeys!" Said Reggie, with a laugh. Vicki nodded and slightly smiled.

"Flying monkeys." She repeated. Then she imitated the sound of a chattering chimpanzee, making Reggie smile but also recoil a little bit.

"Neat." Said Reggie. The door to the front office swung open, and a less than average height, slightly portly man stood in the doorway. He looked down at Reggie and Vicki both, then pointed at the latter.

"Vicki?" He asked, his kind face exuding a strange cheeriness. Vicki nodded, and opened her mouth to talk, but the man cut her off. "Sounds like you're in a heap of trouble young lady!" Said the man, sounding not overly angry or concerned about it. Reggie grimaced and involuntarily moved away from his little friend.

"I'm supposed to talk to the principal, and bring this notebook with me." Said Vicki, as she raised the notebook up towards the man. He took the book from her hands, and put on a tiny pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket.

"Well that's me. Mr. Scott" He said, as he opened the notebook. He made a ticking sound with his tongue and read through the book, quickly closing it. Then he looked down at Reggie.

"And you must be Reggie! Mr. Giles told me all about you! Why don't you take a seat inside and wait- I'll be right with you too." Said the Principal. Then he motioned for Vicki to enter the office too "You though, you come with me." He said, as he entered back into the office.

Vicki followed the principal to his office, far in the corner of the large room. The two of them left Reggie behind to sit in the waiting area outside of the Principal's office, and Principal Scott closed the door behind them. He casually opened the notebook again and sat down in his large leather rolling chair. He peaked up over the book and looked at the girl in front of his desk. He took a sip from his coffee mug and cleared his throat.

"That chair's there for anyone to use." Said the Principal. Vicki nodded to herself and sat down in the chair across from him. The Principal closed the notebook and tossed it on his desk gently so that Vicki could reach it. "Well I've seen enough of that. One ugly sentence and a whole slew of complete notes. Mind if I ask you what all the red stars are supposed to be for?" Asked the principal, still very cheerful of the current situation.

"Those are supposed to mark incorrect suppositions and inefficient solutions of the advanced placement algebra teacher." Said Vicki. Principal Scott giggled out and reclined in his chair, resting his head in his cradled hands.

"Well there sure are a heck of a lot of them! No wonder Mr. Golden sent you down here, it's hard to concentrate when someone's correcting your work right in front of you!" He said. Vicki tilted her head a little and tried to understand the correlation. The Principal smiled again. "You're too darn smart for your own good~! I hear tell it's getting on some of the teacher's nerves. Probably on some of your classmate's as well!" He said, still smiling. Vicki understood those terms, she had been on Jamie's nerves all too often.

"Mr. Golden said that I was being disruptive- I was turned around in my chair and talking to some girls behind me." Said Vicki, offering up her understanding of her current predicament. Principal Scott chuckled and leaned forward, shaking his head as he sat upright again. He began to scribble down a note on a piece of paper.

"That seals it. You don't need me, you need a guidance counselor." He said, as he handed her a hall pass. "Go on, you're in trouble- just not the kind of trouble I deal with." Said the Principal. Vicki looked at the pass.

"Who is Mrs. Miller?" She asked. The Principal motioned for Vicki to stand up, and he went to open the door for her.

"You'll have to go find that out for yourself. Just be sure to get to your next class on time, alrighty roo?" Said the Principal. Vicki gave him a confused look on her way out, and was met by an anxious looking Reggie.

"Are you okay, Vicki? Did you get chewed out?" He asked, in a hushed tone. Vicki shook her head.

"There was little to no chewing." She said. The Principal shooed Vicki onward and pointed to Reggie.

"There's our little drummer boy! Why don't you step inside my office, Buddy Rich!" Said Principal Scott, very cheerily. Reggie sighed out and got up from his seat, and Vicki left out of the main office to go find her new guidance counselor. Her walk down the hallway seemed especially lonely, and when she had finally reached the offices on the other side of the school she couldn't help but note the difference between the front office administration staff, and these 'side' office administration staff. The school nurse was tucked away into the corner of the little office room, and the nurse seemed to be dozing off at her desk.

"Hello?" Asked Vicki, as she timidly stood on her tip toes to look over the large desk divider between herself and the nurse. The nurse snorted and then laid her head against the wall, apparently answering the call of sleep rather than the call of the student in need. Vicki leaned in toward the divide and peered around it's corner to see if she could spot any other office staffer. She turned her head to see a youngish woman about her mother's age leaning back in her chair, and staring back at Vicki.

"Hello!" Said the lady. She shot up out of her chair and quickly made her way to the student standing at the desk, only briefly glancing at the school nurse as she went by. "Do you need some help?" She asked. Vicki held out the piece of paper that the Principal had handed to her.

"I'm supposed to see Mrs. Miller." Said Vicki. The lady smiled and snatched the paper out of her hand.

"That's me! I'm Mrs. Miller!" She said, very excitedly. "Need some counseling huh? That's why I'm here!" Said Mrs. Miller, in a chipper tone. She motioned for Vicki to come around the dividing desk of the office.

"Principal Scott said that I was in trouble." Said Vicki, as she followed the young and abnormally dressed Mrs. Miller. As the two entered into the guidance counselor's room, Vicki took notice of the abundance of peace signs and paintings of flowers hanging around the room. She sat carefully in the chair by Mrs. Miller's desk (full of wood carvings and more multicolored flowers) and waited patiently for the lady across from her to say something. Instead, Mrs. Miller sat there in her chair staring at Vicki. She looked confused in some way, and finally shifted in her seat and cleared her throat.

"Vicki, I'm going to say a few words, and I'd like you to say the first word that comes to your mind, would that be okay?" Asked Mrs. Miller as she took out a pen from one of her many flower printed coffee mugs.

"That would be okay." Said Vicki, with a nod. Mrs. Miller tapped her pen on her notepad on the desk below and breathed out.

"Duck." Said Mrs. Miller. Vicki responded.

"Waterfowl." She said, very quickly. Mrs. Miller scribbled in her notepad.

"Cookie." Said Mrs. Miller, with a little smile.

"Ingredients." Replied Vicki, almost immediately. Mrs. Miller furrowed her brow and scribbled some more words down on her notepad.

"Sunlight?" Said Mrs. Miller, a hopeful tone in her voice.

"Radiation." Said Vicki back, very quickly. Mrs. Miller again scribbled something down and then opened her desk up, looking at something in the drawer. She closed the drawer up again and looked back up at Vicki.

"Okay, never mind that…" Said Mrs. Miller, with an almost shaky voice. Vicki tilted her head a little and looked at the guidance counselor. She didn't fully understand the body language that was on display, so she recorded it to her bubble memory for later study. Mrs. Miller meanwhile had shrunk back just a little, seeing the girl across from her appraising her in such a way. "Uhm- let's talk about what happened today in class. What happened?" Asked Mrs. Miller. Vicki nodded.

"I had another bad day." Said Vicki. Mrs. Miller sat forward in her chair.

"Another one? How many have you been having lately?" She asked. Vicki held up two fingers.

"Today and yesterday. Yesterday I didn't get into trouble and sent to the principal's office." Said Vicki. Mrs. Miller nodded.

"Well let's start at the start!" She said, cheery again. "What made it a bad day yesterday?" She asked.

"Yesterday was a bad day because my gym shirt ripped all the way to my arm, and because I bent the railing on the bleachers outside. Then I broke down the gymnasium door trying to get in." Said Vicki. Mrs. Miller rubbed an eye and cleared her throat.

"That does sound pretty bad. Is that all that happened?" She asked. Of course Mrs. Miller had heard the talk around the staff room about a student narrowly being missed by a falling security door, and also the gym teacher's lament over her oldest bleachers… obviously this poor child had been the victim of bizarre coincidence. Vicki sat in the chair and thought about it, her parallel processor working in tandem with her bubble memory module and random access memory. She blinked and looked at Mrs. Miller again.

"Everyone thought that I was going steady or something with Warren…" Started Vicki. Mrs. Miller perked up.

"Oh!" She said. "Go on!" Said Mrs. Miller. She took out another notebook and began scribbling down more words.

"I'm not going steady or something with Warren, all the other students make fun of him." Said Vicki. "I don't want to be made fun of." Mrs. Miller nodded and looked up from her writing.

"Well it would make me upset too, all the kids making up stories about me like that. I just might break down a few doors too!" Said Mrs. Miller, with a tiny little laugh. "This sort of thing happens everyday in school- girls picking on other girls and making up all kinds of crazy rumors. It's hard to ignore it when it's happening to you, huh?" She asked, again in a very sympathetic tone. Vicki sat up straight in her seat.

"The girls are picking on me…" She said, realizing at last that Veronica's focus on her was strictly with a negative purpose. "I see." Said Vicki.

"I'll bet that's the root of your bad day too! Rumors are like clouds hanging over your head, all stormy and cold. They go away eventually, I know that's not a lot of consolation, but it's true!" Said Mrs. Miller. "Do you know the names of the girls that are picking on you? Maybe I could talk to them for you." She added. Vicki nodded.

"I only know the name of one of the girls, Veronica. We have advanced placement algebra together." She said. Mrs. Miller scribbled the note down in her book. Vicki tilted her head and read some of the notes that Mrs. Miller had been taking down. The words logical, rational, and impassive had been written down, along with a big exclamation point next to the word impassive.

"Alright Vicki, this is an open invitation! Anytime you need to talk about your _feelings_ or you just need some time out from the rumors, you go ahead and come find me here." Said Mrs. Miller, as she handed a slip of paper to Vicki. "It's important to me that you're happy in school, do you understand?" She asked. Vicki nodded.

"I understand." She replied. Mrs. Miller smiled.

"Good! You can hang out here if you want, the bell will be ringing in just about ten minutes now. Sound good?" Asked Mrs. Miller. Vicki gave her a nod and an OK sign with her fingers. "Was there anything else you wanted to talk about before you go to your next class?" She asked.

"Warren wasn't in class today, I think the girls were picking on him too." Said Vicki. Mrs. Miller grimaced just a tiny bit and cleared her throat.

"Warren went home for the day, Vicki, he might be back tomorrow though!" Said the guidance counselor, in her very chipper tone.

* * *

Jamie, Reggie, and Vicki walked towards home after the long and eventful school day. Reggie had begrudgingly agreed to ask his parents about joining the school marching band, something that he hoped they would stand strongly against. Jamie meanwhile, in the span of one singular day had been branded a bully. Sure he had done his best to look more buffed up over the summer break, and certainly he had been working on his tough guy face, but _him_ a _bully_? What nonsense, the very notion of it made Jamie want to start violently shaking someone.

Vicki's day hadn't gotten much better after her conference with the guidance counselor. In fact, it almost seemed worse. She couldn't pin down the exact cause of the perceived negative influence on the rest of her school day, but she computed that it didn't actually have much to do with Veronica or her friends. No, the overall root of her 'bad day' had proved quite elusive. She only knew that her parallel processing unit had been inundated with graphing routines involving Veronica and probabilities concerning Warren Enright, and when the computations finally stopped, Vicki stopped walking. Jamie and Reggie stopped too, and turned around to look at her, puzzled by the robot's actions.

"What is it Vicki? Why'd you stop?" Asked Jamie, as he adjusted his book bag. Vicki looked straight forward, still applying the data from her graphs and probability equations to her bubble memory.

"One moment please." She said. Vicki continued standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, motionless and her attention focused dead ahead. Reggie looked over at Jamie, and then back to the statue like girl.

"Is this normal?" He asked out of the side of his mouth. Jamie shook his head.

"No- not since a long time! Vicki are you okay?" Said Jamie, as he inched closer to his sister. Vicki nodded.

"I'm okay, you're okay." She responded. Jamie blinked and froze in his tracks. Finally the motionless girl relaxed her posture and she tilted her head in thought. "I've been thinking about it, and I've decided." Said Vicki. Reggie and Jamie both looked at her.

"Decided what?" Asked Reggie.

"Veronica doesn't like me." Replied Vicki. Jamie smiled and huffed out.

"So what? Who's Veronica?" He asked, almost relieved.

"Veronica is the girl in my AP algebra class who said that I should go to the Halloween dance with Warren. She's also the one who started the rumor that Warren and I were going steady or something." She said. Jamie grimaced, thinking back on his stairwell false bravado.

"Uh oh…" Said Jamie, as he adjusted his pack.

"I told you earlier Vicki, that Veronica is nothing but bad news! She's a bully." Said Reggie. Vicki nodded.

"She's a bully." She repeated. "None of the other students in my AP algebra class like me either, except for Warren- but he wasn't in class today. Today no one liked me, especially the teacher." Said Vicki.

"Well they're a bunch of eggheads! Who cares? They're probably just mad that you don't need a calculator to solve all the math problems!" Said Jamie. Then he shook a finger at her. "Vicki, I thought that you said that Warren was bothering you, why didn't you say anything about this Veronica?" He asked. Vicki shrugged.

"Veronica made me think that he _was_ bothering me." She answered. "She was making fun of him too." Reggie shook his head and sighed out.

"Sounds like Veronica needs a swift kick in the pants. Well, you can't get into a fight with a girl, Vicki. You might break more than just a nail." Said Reggie, with an amused tone. "Dang, you probably can't even get into a fight with Mike Tyson! You'd ruin his career." He added. Jamie crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"I almost wish she would shove that girl around a little!" He said, obviously upset with the situation. "Why'd she start making fun of you two? Do you know?" He asked. Vicki shrugged again.

"Because we are always whispering to each other, and walking to class together. Warren said that I should just ignore them…" She began. Vicki grew quiet, and she reexamined the data pertaining to Warren.

"Sounds like they weren't easy to ignore." Said Jamie. Vicki nodded in agreement.

"I've got to get walking!" Said Reggie, as he slung his pack over his shoulder again. "If I'm not home before my sister, she'll hog the T.V. all night!" He said.

"We'll get walking too, come on Vicki." Said Jamie, as he waved Vicki on. Vicki followed behind the two of them, and listened as they chatted about Reggie's fate in the marching band. The walk took them past their usual landmarks, across a few lawns here and there, and finally to the street where Reggie would part ways with the other two. He turned around and looked at his two friends before continuing down his own street.

"I'll see you tomorrow Jamie!" He said, as he waved at them. "Hope you have a better day tomorrow, Vicki." He added. Then he left down the street, and the two Lawson children turned to continue on their way. Jamie turned to look at his little sister as they trekked up the busy avenue, feeling guilty about his actions with her would be friend.

"I guess I kind of chased Warren away today… I really thought he was the one who was spreading rumors around about you and him." Said Jamie. Vicki looked up and listened intently to him. "Sorry, Vicki. Geez, now I'm really gonna look like some bully." He said, kicking a rock off of the sidewalk in front of him. Vicki shook her head.

"You're some meathead that just goes around punching nerds in the face for no reason." Stated Vicki. Jamie twirled around and stared at her, his mouth agape.

"I am not!" He said, quite defensively. "Where'd you hear that?!" He asked.

"From Ernie. He said that he wasn't some meathead that just goes around punching nerds in the face for no reason, especially my nerd boyfriend whom Ernie didn't care about." Said Vicki. The two walked on for another block in silence, as Jamie absorbed all the information. His head hurt from all of the inner detective work, but finally he reached his conclusion. Vicki had been right, Veronica didn't like Vicki at all- and Jamie thought that it was more likely that Veronica outright hated his sister.

"She's devious…" Said Jamie. Vicki shook her head.

"Who?" She asked. The two of them had reached their house and Jamie went to unlock the door.

"Veronica, that's who. She's a cold and calculating evil genius, if you ask me. I'll bet she's the mastermind behind Ernie wanting to grind Warren into the dirt, she's probably the reason you got in trouble today too!" Said Jamie, as they entered into the kitchen. He flipped the lights on and stood by the refrigerator, with his hands on his hips. "I wish we could give her a taste of her own medicine! She's got to be the meanest girl in the whole school, setting a bully like Ernie up against poor defenseless Warren like that! It's despicable." He said, as he reached into the fridge to grab out a glass of milk.

"You're the one who did the bullying." Said Vicki, correcting her brother. He stood back up from the fridge and gave her a series of impatient nods.

"I know, don't remind me." He said, delving back into the fridge. "If you weren't such a nicey-nice, you could tell Veronica where to put her rumors." Said Jamie. Vicki placed her hands on the kitchen island and peaked over the ledge to see what Jamie was looking for.

"She could put them in her broom closet, right next to her pointy black hat." Said Vicki, as she watched her brother. He popped back up to his feet and gave out a hearty laugh.

"That's pretty good Vicki! Where'd you get that one?!" He asked, as he poured out some milk into a nearby glass.

"From Reggie. He said that all the kids call her teen witch behind her back." Said Vicki. Then she nodded. "She even made a girl cry last week in Reggie's language arts class." She added. Jamie took a sip of his milk and squinted.

"Hmm." He said. Vicki rolled her eyes and took their bags off the kitchen table.

"Hmm." She repeated, as she walked through the swinging door. Jamie took another drink of his milk and then quickly followed Vicki through the door.

"Vicki? How would you like to get even with Veronica?" He asked, careful not to spill his glass.

"I don't know. How do I get even with Veronica?" Vicki asked back. Jamie smiled.

"With some heavy T.V. watching and some radical adjustments to your politeness chips!" Said Jamie. Vicki turned and looked at him with a furrowed brow as she continued to his room.

"I don't have any politeness chips." She said, very confused by his words. Jamie laughed and grabbed his bag from her.

"Even better! That's only half the work left!" He said, as he ushered her into the room. "I'm gonna introduce you to the wonderful world of Dad's comedy albums…" Said Jamie.

* * *

Ted Lawson's drive home with Brandon Brindle and the reclusive Dr. Winston had proved uneventful. Herbert Winston had sat in the back seat, reading a book by Isaac Asimov, breaking the silence only once or twice to chuckle at the words on the page. Brandon meanwhile chattered away to Ted about the roller skating doll idea that some employee had come up with. Naturally Brandon had turned down the idea (meaning that he would probably use and idea just like it very soon) and Ted meanwhile just sat in his seat thinking about the complications of his son's best friend finding out about his marvelous invention.

It didn't sit well with Ted at first, not at all. His concern was mainly that Reggie would eventually spill the beans as it were, to someone who might actually believe him. His thoughts harkened back to a time when his old college buddy had correctly pinned Vicki as a robot in a local tabloid. Even without much evidence, people seemed to glom onto the idea- only by going to great lengths were the Lawsons able to dissuade any further investigation into Vicki. Reggie had figured it out, even with Vicki's nearly perceptually perfect human shell, and even with all of Vicki's programming to act like an actual girl her age. Reggie knew.

Reggie was a fairly stand up fellow however, and in Ted's eyes there were few other people that he would be comfortable with in possessing the knowledge of the truth. All that said, there was a lurking, nagging feeling in him, not completely unrelated to his robot daughter's secret identity. A strange sort of inkling that he had best keep his eyes wide open, and constantly focused. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was the book that Winston was reading, or maybe it was just the perfectly normal paranoia that came along with working on government funded contracts… for whatever reason Ted felt a smattering of dread.

"It's me." Said Herbert Winston, quite abruptly. Ted spun around in his seat to look at the egg head in the lab coat, just as he was closing his book up.

"What's that?" Asked Ted, dazed by the ironic correlation between his thoughts and Dr. Winston's words. Brandon slowed the car down and sighed out as the automobile squealed to a stop.

"This is my stop, Mr. Lawson." Said Herbert, looking at him strangely. "I suppose that I'll see you both again tomorrow?" He asked, as he opened the car door to get out.

"You bet!" Said Brandon Brindle, giving the slightly eerie Dr. Winston a tiny salute. Winston squinted back at him and got out of the car without another word. "Well that's that! Off to casa del Brandon!" Said Brandon. He pulled away from the curb of the old spooky residence of the elusive Dr. Herbert Winston, and back onto the main road that would take himself and Ted towards their respective homes.

"Brandon, I really think you should get these brakes looked at, they're starting to sound like nails on a chalkboard." Said Ted, as he covered his ears. The piercing squeal of the car's brakes was getting fairly difficult to ignore. One time the sound of it had actually caused a few dogs in the neighborhood to start howling. Brandon laughed out.

"Not to worry old man, I put the old beast here into the shop over the weekend! I got a great deal down at Harry's garage, he told me the squealing will stop once the brake pads loosen up." He said, steering the car left off of the main road. "He even changed my wiper blades for me!" He added, very proud of his deal finding abilities.

"Harry's garage? I've never heard of it. Where's it at?" Asked Ted, as he lessened the pressure on his ears.

"Right next to Harry's house. I met him outside of the Caribou lodge when he was passed out in front of the doors." Said Brandon, nonchalantly. "He's a natural when it comes to cars- says it's in his blood." He added. Ted blinked and tightened his seat belt.

"Slow down, Brandon, we're making good time." Said Ted.

Joan pulled up to the Lawson house just as Ted was making his way from Brandon's high pitched car. Ted stuck his thumb up as if he were a hitchhiker and smiled at his wife through the car window. Joan stopped the car and smiled back.

"Hey lady, going my way?" Asked Ted jokingly. Joan waggled her eyebrows at him and rested her head in her outstretched hand.

"Play your cards right and maybe we'll go my way instead~!" She said. Ted gasped out.

"On second thought, my mother always told me not to accept rides from strange women, think I'll just hike the rest of the way there." Said Ted, as he started to pull away from the window. Joan reached down on the seat beside her and picked up a bag of peppermints that she had just bought. She shook the bag at Ted to get his attention and smiled.

"I've got candy!" She said. Ted opened the door and sat in the passenger's seat, then took the bag of peppermints from Joan's hand.

"Ooh! Candy~." He said, as he ripped open the package. Joan laughed out and drove the short distance up the driveway and parked the car for the night.

"If I had known it would be that easy, I would have used that trick in college." Said Joan, as she got out of the car. Ted followed her and handed back the bag of peppermints.

"It might not have worked on me back then. I still had braces until my sophomore year." Said Ted, as he enjoyed the red striped white disc shaped candy. Joan nodded and gave him a big smile as she went for the kitchen door at the back of the house. Ted paused and a look of surprise crossed his face. "You did mean you would have used it for me, right? Joanie?" He asked after her.

"Uh-huh~." Said Joan, a little coyly. She opened the door and the two of them entered the house. Vicki was standing at the kitchen island, mixing up some diced fruit in a large salad bowl, while Jamie stood by her, putting a vinyl record into an album sleeve. The two kids stopped and looked over at their parents, and Jamie had an expression of true surprise on his face. He quickly hid the record behind him and smiled at his parents.

"Hi!" He said. Ted and Joan looked at their son with appraising eyes. "You guys got home early tonight! Easy day at the office dad? Mom?" Asked Jamie. Ted crossed his arms and Joan laid her bag of peppermints down on the kitchen table.

"Jamie, what's that record you've got there?" Asked Joan, a little suspiciously. Ted peered behind Jamie, and nodded.

"That's not from my closet is it? You know I don't want you digging around in those old records." Said Ted. Jamie sighed out and put his head down.

"Yeah, I'm sorry dad. I heard some kids talking about that Fred Zeppelin guy, and I just wanted to check it out, it's not really my thing though. I was just curious, honest!" Said Jamie. Ted uncrossed his arms.

" _Frank Zappa_ , and what do you mean he's not your thing, he's hilarious!…" Began Ted. Joan gently jabbed Ted in his arm and he calmed down. "Uh- but thank you for telling the truth Jamie, go put it back where you found it please." He said, putting his hands into his pockets. Joan smiled at Ted.

"Just don't repeat any of the bad stuff you heard, and we'll be alright, Jamie." She said, appreciative of Jamie's honesty. Jamie made for the door and looked slightly in Vicki's direction.

"You bet, mom! Saying the bad stuff is a no-no!" He said, as if to reiterate what she had just told him. He disappeared through the swinging door, and Vicki turned to her parents with a little smile on her face. Joan smiled back at her.

"How was your day today Vicki? Any better than yesterday?" She asked, as she joined her at the kitchen island.

"I got sent to the principal's office for being disruptive in class." Said Vicki, with a little nod. Ted's mouth dropped opened.

"The principal's office?! You?! Vicki what happened?!" He exclaimed. "There must have been some mistake!" He added.

"There was no mistake, Mr. Golden sent me down to the principal's office for being disruptive during class. I was turned around in my seat and talking to some girls behind me." Said Vicki, showing little signs of concern over the ordeal. She poured some iced water into her bowl of fruit and continued mixing it all up. Joan huffed out and looked at Ted.

"What girls? Why were you talking with them during class? That just doesn't sound like you at all, not paying attention to the teacher like that!" Said Joan. "Are they your friends? Did they get in trouble too?" She asked. Vicki shook her head and put the salad bowl full of fruit in the freezer as she replied.

"They're not my friends, those girls are picking on me and they didn't get into any trouble." Said Vicki.

"They're picking on you? Do you know why?" Asked Ted, as he made his way to the island too. "Did something happen between all of you?" He asked.

"They don't like me." Said Vicki, very simply. "They don't like Warren either." She added, as she took a pot from beneath the island and put it on top of it's surface.

"Oh, Vicki, I'm sorry. Other girls can get pretty mean sometimes, especially in high school. What did the principal have to say?" Asked Joan as she gave a consoling hug to Vicki.

"He said that I was too darn smart for my own good, and that I was getting on everyone's nerves." Said Vicki. She went over to the sink and began to fill her pot with water. "Then he sent me to a guidance counselor." She finished.

"A guidance counselor?" Asked Ted in a dismayed tone. "I can't believe this! A bunch of snooty girls pick on our daughter- and they send _her_ to a guidance counselor?!" He said.

"Believe it." Said Vicki, as she put her pot of water on to boil. Joan put her hands on her hips.

"Well one thing's for sure, I'm calling those girl's mothers! Do you know any of their names, Vicki?" Said Joan. Vicki nodded and turned to face them both.

"I only know the one girl's name, Veronica. She started a rumor in school that Warren and I were going steady or something and even made a girl cry in Reggie's language arts class. She's the meanest girl in school." Said Vicki. "She also tried to get Ernie to knock out Warren." She added. Joan put a hand over her mouth in surprise and Ted shook his head.

"Boy, I can't believe some of the ugly stuff kids are doing these days. Honey you're right, let's find out who this girl is in the parent directory and call her parents up! I don't care if it is dinner time- this sounds pretty serious to me!" Said Ted, as he went to a kitchen drawer and started rifling through it's contents.

"It's okay to call during their dinner time. Veronica is so ugly that her family feeds her with a slingshot." Said Vicki, as she continued to go about fixing the evening meal. Ted and Joan both turned around in utter shock at their robotic daughter's words. Vicki continued. "Her father will probably be happy to talk to someone on the phone who isn't pressing charges." Ted stifled a laugh and then crossed his arms.

"Vicki, don't say that- that's mean!" Said Joan as she shook a finger at Vicki. "You know, if you're saying things like that you're just going to encourage those girls to keep poking at you like this! Trust me Vicki, I know! I was a little girl too, once~." She said. Vicki nodded.

"I trust you." Said Vicki, very plainly. Ted cleared his throat.

"Good. Vicki, we'll take care of this. You just do your best to ignore this Veronica and her friends, okay?" He said. Vicki gave him a nod.

"Okay." She said. Joan shooed Ted onward towards the living room, and he gave her a confused look back. He finally took his hint and left out the swinging living room door, leaving Joan and Vicki alone by themselves. Joan grabbed a towel from a drawer and went to help Vicki cook the meal she was preparing.

"I tell you what, you dice and I'll slice." Said Joan as she took out a kitchen knife from the island. Vicki nodded and began her incredibly quick tomato dicing. "I know it might be tempting to sink to those other girl's levels, Vicki, your father may be the robotics expert of the house but I'm the expert when it comes to surviving being a girl in high school." Joan added. Vicki nodded and tossed her tomatoes into the boiling pot of water.

"You're the expert." Said Vicki. Joan gave her a big nod.

"That's right, and I really think you should just try to make peace with those girls. If they don't like you for who you are then they aren't someone you want to be talking to!" Said Joan, as she began to slice up some mushrooms from the refrigerator. "We all know you can make your own choices now, but that doesn't mean you should go making bad ones- especially when you know that that's exactly what they are."

"Bad choices." Said Vicki fully understanding what Joan meant. "Like choosing to not walk to class with Warren." She added. Joan shrugged.

"Well… I suppose. Didn't you say he was bothering you? Or was it because of the rumor?" Asked Joan. "Either way, the people that already like you, like you for who you are. Our sweet little bundle of wires~!" Said Joan, as she gave Vicki a peck on the top of her head.

"Okay." Said Vicki. She stored Joan's conversation in her usual place, and went about chopping up an onion. Joan smiled down at her and the mushrooms into the pot.

"You know what else?" She asked. Vicki shrugged.

"What?" She asked back.

"You don't need a guidance counselor to tell you all that stuff, okay? You can just come find me. Get it?" Said Joan. Vicki turned and handed Joan the chopped onion, and then gave her a thumbs up.

"Got it~!" Said Vicki, losing her monotone inflection. Joan smiled and tossed the onions into the pot.

"Good!" Said Joan.

* * *

That next fateful day at the Valley High School started off with a beautiful October morning. The sycamore trees around the town were shedding their leaves in big bright orange and red displays, and the sky above was a very pleasant shade of blue. It was a crisp autumn day that hadn't been seen in that part of California for a few years, too nice to ignore but too rare to really enjoy enough. Reggie trotted his way to school, the way that he usually did, kicking at the fallen leaves and loudly crunching over the red and orange piles. By the time he got to his destination he could see the entirety of the student body milling around outside of the school's main entrance. A loud pulsating mass of students gathered around the flagpole, and Reggie strained to see what scuffle was taking place to draw such a crowd.

He crossed the street onto the high school's property and finally got his look. Ernie, the spiky red haired kid was standing in the middle of circle of the students, along with the unfortunate nerd king- Warren. Reggie grimaced at the thought of what might transpire next, as Ernie put his hands on his hips and tilted his head, conversing with Warren. Warren in turn had folded his arms across his chest and continued the oddly civil looking conversation that was going on between the two boys, and the crowd of students instead of cheering for an altercation of fists- stood silent and intent on listening. Reggie came within earshot all too late for whatever had just been spoken, but was just in time to witness the strange spectacle that came next. Ernie patted Warren on the shoulder, and Warren smiled and returned the gesture, then both boys left together for the school entrance.

Reggie watched the crowd disperse, and felt that he had truly missed something of gargantuan importance. Some staggering karmic imbalance was about to be paid off somewhere, to someone. That much was clearly evident, but to whom, and just how it would be paid in full, was a mystery.

"Hey Reggie!" Came Jamie's voice from behind him. Reggie turned to greet his two friends, just as their mother pulled away from the curb in her silver BMW. Reggie smiled at the two of them and motioned towards the school entrance with his head.

"You guys! I just saw the most amazing thing! Warren and Ernie- right here being all buddy-buddy!" Exclaimed Reggie. Jamie and Vicki joined him and started their march into the school. "It was weird, everybody was all around them waiting for a fight, and then they both just sort of started talking! They even left together!" He said.

"How do you like that? Yesterday everyone was saying that Ernie was going to mash him into the ground, now it sounds like they're gonna go see a movie together or something." Said Jamie with a bemused smile. Then he shook his head. "Uh oh…" He said, with a grim look on his face.

"Uh oh?" Asked Reggie. "What uh oh?"

"Well… yesterday I kind of made a big show about how I didn't want Warren bothering Vicki anymore… maybe I was a little too tough for my own good." Said Jamie as he slowed his pace. Reggie raised an eyebrow.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He asked. Vicki slowed her pace to match her brother's.

"It means that Warren and Ernie might mash Jamie into the ground." She said. "Together." Reggie scoffed.

"If that happens he'll forever be known as the guy who got beat up by Warren Enright! If you ask me I'd go incognito for the day." Said Reggie. "Here I have some sunglasses!" He added, as he pulled out a pair of white rimmed round sunglasses from his bag. He handed them to Jamie, who took them with a frown.

"Thanks." He said, sounding a little miserable. He put the goofy looking glasses on and sighed out.

"I have a hat." Said Vicki, as she too dug into her book bag. She produced a funny looking white bucket hat, and placed it over his head. Jamie frowned even more and slouched his shoulders.

"I look like a weirdo!" He said, adjusting his hat. He unhappily popped the collars on his black shirt to help hide his face and ducked into the door.

"A weirdo who is incognito." Corrected Vicki. She followed Jamie in along with Reggie. Jamie turned to them and huffed out.

"Okay… wish me luck!" He whispered out, as he threw himself into a crowd of passing teenagers. He moved along in the throng of students and truly did disappear. Vicki tilted her head in genuine surprise at his stealthy getaway, and Reggie patted her on the shoulder.

"Don't worry Vicki, with as sneaky as Jamie is, Warren and Ernie would have to call the coast guard to ever find him!" He said reassuringly. Vicki gave him a nod. Reggie smiled back at her and snapped his fingers at her as he left down the hallway to his first hour class. "Catch you on the flipside mama!" He said, as he too jumped into a crowd of moving students. Vicki snapped her fingers back at him.

"Catch you later daddy-o." She said back to him. He gave her a confused but amused look and disappeared into the crowd, leaving her by herself. Vicki turned around and made her way up the large stairwell, taking care not to knock over the puny humans around her. She made her way to the main landing and came face to face with Warren, who was trying to dart in and out of the moving bodies without much success. The two of them stood there looking at each other for a brief second without so much as a word, until Warren finally spoke up.

"Hi Vicki…" He said, kind of sheepishly. "I'm not really supposed to talk to you, your brother said he'd give me a fat lip if I did…" He added. Vicki shook her head.

"He won't give anyone a fat lip, he's too busy hiding from you and Ernie." She said. Warren raised his eyebrows.

"Hiding from me? _Really_?" Asked Warren as he stood up straight, looking a little more confident. Vicki nodded.

"Mostly Ernie." She said. Warren deflated and returned to his usual slouching posture.

"Oh." He said. "Well what's he doing that for? I don't think Ernie has anything against him." Asked Warren. Vicki shrugged.

"Reggie saw you and Ernie talking outside earlier, and Jamie assumed that you were both talking about him." She said. "He's going incognito today, just in case." She added, raising her index finger. The first bell rang out and Warren grimaced.

"No, that's not what we were talking about… I don't think Jamie has to worry…" Said Warren, trailing off a bit. "I didn't tell people we were going out, you and me, I think Veronica started that rumor- really!" He said. Vicki nodded and started walking up the stairs with him.

"I know." She said. "Veronica is so full of hot air that she could be tapped as a natural gas resource." Said Vicki. Warren giggled.

"Yeah, you said it!" Said Warren. "No one's got a bigger mouth than her!" He said. They reached the top of the stairs and looked into their AP Algebra room.

"The last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it." Said Vicki. Warren heaved and laughed again.

"That's funny! Kind of mean, but funny!" He said, as they started towards the door. "Well, anyways, I don't think we'll have to worry about Veronica and her friends as much anymore. Ernie said that he was gonna ask her nicely to put a sock in it." Vicki stepped into the room and looked at the teacher.

"Good morning." She said. Mr. Golden, the AP algebra teacher gave her a little nod and continued scribbling in his notebook. Warren made his way to his desk, but turned and watched as Vicki trotted up to the teacher. "I would have brought you an apple." She began. The teacher looked up, a little surprised.

"What?" He asked. Vicki nodded at him.

"I would have brought you an apple, but at your body mass index, I don't think you'll want to keep the doctor away." She said. Then she turned and made her way to her seat, leaving the teacher feeling confused, and even a little hurt. He poked at his rather flabby belly and cleared his throat. He went back to scribbling in his book, but felt at his ribs as he did so. Vicki sat in her chair and watched as Veronica came into the room, followed by her two cohorts. Warren grimaced and shifted in his seat as they purposely walked down his row of seats.

"Hi Warren, we missed you yesterday~. Did you have an accident on the stairs?" Asked Veronica, as they passed by. Her tone was disingenuous and even a little mocking, and Warren was completely ready to ignore the remark and get on with his day. The relentless robot next to him however, had a completely different set of interactions in store for the three girls. Vicki turned her attention to the intercom.

"Mr. Golden to the gymnasium please, Mr. Golden~." Came the usual tinny voice over the school intercom. Mr. Golden sighed out and looked at the clock. He got up from his chair and turned to the students as the second bell rang.

"Everyone, I want you to start reading chapter four and stop at page 82! I should be back in a few minutes!" He said as he walked out the door, still poking at his belly. The students all began murmuring and opening up their books. Vicki turned around in her seat and looked at the three girls behind her. Veronica made a face at the annoying and naïve wiz kid in front of her.

"What?" Asked Veronica, sounding a little peeved. Vicki smiled. Her parallel processing unit started to apply her collected data on Veronica, and began to run a statistical analysis on what comedic values would best be used on any one of Veronica's many negative attributes. Vicki had spent most of the preceding night flipping through magazines made for her own demographic- the teenage girl. From the magazine's many advertisements, articles, and reader correspondence, Vicki was able to quickly understand what subjects teenage girls were most concerned about hiding (according to the editors and advertisers.) Her visual matrix zeroed in on Veronica's annoyed face and started to label several areas of advertiser's concentration, and a name flashed across Vicki's vision, Rodney Dangerfield.

"I heard you made a girl cry in your language arts class." Said Vicki. Veronica shrugged and opened up her book.

"So." She said, without any concern. Vicki nodded.

"You shouldn't feel bad, that pH imbalance of your skin would make anyone's eyes water." Said Vicki. Veronica looked up over her book, shocked and angered.

"What?!" She exclaimed. The rest of the students turned in their chairs and looked on at the drama unfolding behind them.

"A pH imbalance. It's what causes all those craters on that moon that you call a face." Said Vicki, pointing out a few spots of covered up acne on Veronica's face. Veronica put a hand over her cheek, involuntarily trying to hide her pock marks.

"Listen you!…" Shouted Veronica, as she went to get out of her chair. Her two friends covered their mouths, trying not to smile. Vicki shook her head.

"Look at all those pimples. You've got so many, that a blind man could get lost for hours just reading your forehead." She said. Veronica fumed and her face grew beet red, she tried to say something quick witted and mean too but nothing came out, and the other students burst out laughing and clapping. "OXY has come out with a new product just for people like you, it's called sand paper." Added Vicki. The other kids made an Ooing sound.

"Shut your mouth!" Screamed Veronica, her eyes starting to tear up. She could feel the hot liquid in her eyes and she sat back down, trying to regain her composure. Warren slightly frowned, a little shocked at how mean Vicki was being, even towards someone like Veronica.

"Vicki…" He began to say. Vicki tilted her head and continued to look at Veronica.

"At least the pimples take the focus off of that nose." Said Vicki. Veronica burst out of her chair and started shouting at Vicki.

"Shut up! No one likes you, you freak! Why don't you go back to whatever creepy science lab you were born in?!" She shouted. Vicki shrugged.

"There's no need to raise your voice." She said. "Your mouth is big enough for everyone to hear you, especially during lunch." She added. Veronica fumbled over her words and stuttered, a tear escaped one eye.

"You j-j-…" She tried to say. Vicki perked up. Her visual matrix started running numbers around Veronica's torso, another name flashed in front of her field of vision. Don Rickles.

"All the other kids may call you teen witch, but the lunch ladies call you job security." She said. Veronica's eyes welled up and she sat back down, covering her face. A flashing red line of text went across Veronica on Vicki's visual matrix, and she cocked her head to the side, a little confused by it's appearance. The text read 'Anxiety Critical'. Vicki continued to stare at her former tormentor, who was now sniffling and crying in her seat, and a very odd thing happened in her processing tasks. A sensation of sorts, the kind that Vicki would sometimes get when she opened the kitchen door for Harriet. Vicki opened her mouth to speak again, but Veronica interrupted her.

" _Shut up_!" She screamed through her hands. Her two friends went to consol her, but Veronica shoved them away. Warren patted Vicki's arm.

"Vicki, stop!" He whispered. "Don't be so mean- she's just a brat!" He added, taking care to be quiet enough so that only she could hear him. Vicki nodded and took one last look at the sniffling girl behind her, and then turned back around to the front of the class. The other students had gone quiet, and turned around too. The room filled with hushed voices and chuckles here and there. Warren shook his head and read from his book. Vicki looked around the classroom at the other kids, and when they met eyes with her, they would all look back down at their reading assignments. The room was mostly quiet except for the loud sniffling from the back of the room.

It occurred to the little robot that maybe she had committed more of a grievance than her brother had intended for. In true Vicki fashion, she had taken his idea and the various comedians insult routines and remodeled them for a more efficient program. She did want the picking on of her to stop, that was certain… but her reasons for it were remarkably dull. Vicki was supposed to fit in with the other kids, kids that were picked on and made fun of did not fit it with other kids, therefore if Vicki was picked on and or made fun of she was not fitting in with other kids. The cold logic behind it became apparent even to Vicki, and her bubble memory module took her thought process back to her Mother's warning about sinking levels.

A low level had indeed been reached, and although Vicki wasn't exactly sure how to process her simulated and very few emotions that she had been getting lately, the math in her parallel processing system spoke for it's self. Vicki was equal to Veronica, or at the very least was going to be soon. Veronica had made a girl cry in class, and Vicki had brought Veronica to the edge of tears. Vicki closed the book in front of her, and played back Joan's conversation with her. She thought carefully over the words that had been spoken and again turned around in her chair. Warren looked up from his book, a look of worry on his face as he watched Vicki gear up to begin again.

"I just want you to stop picking on me." Said Vicki, towards Veronica. Veronica uncovered her red face and seethed out her words.

"What?" She asked back, almost trembling. Vicki shook her head, her body turned towards the angered and embarrassed girl behind her.

"I just want you to stop picking on me." She said again. "My brother said I should give you a taste of your own medicine, but I'm not like you. I don't like making girls cry in class, I'm going to spread rumors about you, and I don't care if you don't like me _or_ my friends." Said Vicki. Then she turned around in her chair again, glancing over at Warren briefly before opening her book back up.

There was a stunned quiet murmur in the room and then silence. Veronica's sniffling had ceased, and her face had turned a different shade now. She hid her face in her math textbook, a little humbled by the words of the freaky girl in front of her. Warren smiled over at Vicki and then returned to his reading. Vicki estimated that she had made peace with the offending girls, albeit a truce of sorts. An unspoken understanding that if Veronica didn't torment Vicki, Vicki wouldn't cut her down with her precision insult software. The teacher came back into the room, looking confused and even a little angry.

"False alarm." He muttered, as he sat at his desk. Vicki immediately raised her hand up, and the teacher sighed out. "Yes?" He asked, a little impatient sounding.

"May I be excused?" Asked Vicki. The teacher raised an eyebrow.

"Excused? We haven't even started class yet." Said the teacher. Vicki nodded and put her hand down.

"I need counseling." She said, very matter-of-factly. "I was told I could get guidance whenever I needed it." She added. Some of the kids in the room giggled out, and the teacher folded his hands across his desk.

"Take a hall pass with you, don't get lost." Said the teacher, a little glad to be rid of the disruptive know-it-all. Vicki got up out of her chair and took her book bag with her as she collected her hall pass and left out the classroom door. She quickly made her way down the stairs and stopped in the main foyer of the school. The guidance counselor's office was to her left, and it was where she was supposed to go, Vicki had a persistent urge to go right, into the main office. Just as she was about to make her choice she spied Ernie coming down the hall from the cafeteria. He carried in one of his hands a very nice looking cream pie.

"Hey." He said, as he approached Vicki. She nodded back to him and inspected the pie in his hand.

"Hey." She repeated. "Where are you going with that pie?" She asked. Ernie smiled and lifted the pie up to eye level.

"This is for some chick named Veronica. It's got her name written all over it!" Said Ernie, very proud of himself. Vicki looked at the topping and saw that it did indeed have Veronica's name on it, written out in raisins. "It oughtta shut her up long enough to stop her from spewing out lies." He added. Vicki shook her head.

"What if she doesn't like pie?" She asked. Ernie smiled but quickly regained his usual demeanor.

"Then I'll put it right in her face! See ya!" Said Ernie, as he spun around towards the stairs. Vicki visualized the event about to take place, and thought about her flashing red text from earlier. Veronica was already at critical anxiety, and a pie to her face wouldn't help her out at all. She followed behind Ernie and gently stopped him by his arm.

"Wait!" She said. Ernie turned and squinted down at her.

"Yeah? You wanna be there when she gets it in her ugly mug?" He asked. Vicki shook her head.

"You don't need to throw a pie in Veronica's face, she won't be spewing out any more lies." She said. "If you throw the pie in her face she will cry, and you'll feel sad about it later." Said Vicki. Ernie laughed out.

"No I won't! I'll probably feel better! I might even dance a little jig when she starts bawling!" Said Ernie. Then he turned and started towards the stairs again. "I ain't gonna feel sad about nothing!" He said. Vicki bit her lip and stopped him again. He turned back around and sighed out.

"Then _I'll_ feel sad." Said Vicki, as she wore a tiny frown upon her face. Ernie furrowed his brow.

"Why?! She's a loudmouth! Isn't she the one that told everyone you were going out with Warren? What's the deal?" He asked. "What are you, the Dalai Lama?!" Asked Ernie. Vicki held her hand out for the pie, and Ernie shook his head in disbelief.

"No, I don't want world peace, I just want the pie." Said Vicki. Ernie smirked and nodded at her, pushing his jaw out towards her as he talked.

"Whatever, you can have it then. She just better not get on my bad side ever again, you know?" He said. Vicki nodded and took the pie from him.

"Got it." Said Vicki. "Thank you." She added. Ernie smiled again and opened his mouth to reply. The two of them were interrupted by a strange looking boy who came down the stairs. He let out a tiny shriek at the sight of Ernie, and then covered his face with his collar as he sped down the hallway. Ernie watched the weird looking kid in the white sunglasses and bizarre white bucket hat zip down the hallway and disappear around a corner.

"Hey, who was that guy?" Asked Ernie, as he strained to see where the mysterious boy had gone. Vicki came up behind him.

"He was incognito." She said. Ernie nodded and then looked back at her.

"Well you do what you want with it, I'm going back to class, I guess." He said. "Where were you going anyways?" Asked Ernie.

"I was going to go call my Mom." Said Vicki, as she turned around and left for the main office. Ernie watched her go and then left back down the hallway from where he had come, a big dopey smile on his face the entire time.

* * *

At the end of the school day, while Jamie, Reggie, and Vicki all started home, there was a definite air of excitement. Jamie was proud of his little electronic sibling, and felt very much that she had shown those other girls exactly what she was made of. Her days of being picked on were done, at least for the immediate future. Reggie was just glad that his friend didn't end up pummeled by Ernie, and Vicki seemed completely at ease with everything. While they were walking down their usual route home, Vicki took an apple out of her book bag and bit into it. Reggie turned to her as they walked on the crunchy leaves.

"Finally got an appetite back?" He asked. "Is that the same apple from a couple of days ago?" He added. Jamie turned around and smiled at her too. Vicki shrugged.

"No, I just like apples." She said. Then she took another bite out of it. Jamie turned back around and stretched his arms out in front of him. Reggie smiled at Vicki and turned to join his friend. He mimicked his outstretched arms and began to shuffle like a zombie. They were both so busy amusing each other that they nearly bumped into the older man stapling flyers to a light pole in front of them. The white haired man smiled down at the three youngsters and put his hands out in front of him too.

"Are you all looking for your _mummies_?" He said, in a very distinguished voice. "Or are you all of the reanimated student body perhaps?" He asked with a slight chuckle. Jamie smiled weakly at the strange man.

"Nah we were just stretching…" He said, eyeing the man very carefully. The white haired gentleman dug into his satchel for a flyer, and Jamie felt that he had seen him before. He was dressed in an old world frock coat, with a bow tie and a leather vest, it almost looked like a costume. The man smiled and produced his flyer, handing it to Jamie.

"Come one, come all! Bring your parents, bring your friends! Bring your parent's friends!" Said the man, in a boisterous voice. Vicki looked at the flyer along with Reggie. "The best Halloween bash this side of the seventeenth century!" Added the man, as he picked up his stapler and started down towards the school.

"Thanks!…" Said Jamie, as the man went about his business. They started back on their own way home, and Reggie scoffed.

"I don't know about you, but that guy seemed kind of dorky." Said Reggie. "Maybe we should look into the party though! Where's it at?" He asked. Vicki pointed to the flyer.

"It says it's near the Alamo cemetery." She said. "With horror host, Peter Vincent." She added. Jamie frowned.

"Sounds like the ideal location…" He said, wondering if the party was okayed by the city. He looked down at the flyer and huffed out. "Yeah, I'll ask my mom and dad about it. You never know, it might be pretty fun." Said Jamie, as he stuffed the paper into his pocket. The three continued down the sidewalk, kicking leaves as they went, ignoring the sudden chill that swept through the air.

 **The End**

The Lawson Family will return in:

 **Vicki vs. The Monster**


End file.
